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The Bush administration has been frantically promoting immunity for telecommunications corporations from lawsuits brought by citizens who were illegally spied upon by the government with the telecoms’ help.

Why? The Bush administration has been saying they don’t want any lawsuits brought against telecommunications corporations because they don’t want patriots who were helping the government fight terrorism be punished for their effort in the War on Terror, gosh darn it. That was always a line of bull: the real reason the Bush administration wants blanket immunity for telecommunications corporations is that if nobody can bring a lawsuit against the telecommunications corporations for helping the government spy on Americans without a warrant, then there’s no way for a court case to be brought before the judicial branch that would result in spying without a warrant being declared unconstitutional, which it is (see “Amendment, 4th“). If you gut the right to file a lawsuit, you block the federal courts from nullifying the law. Presto alakazam! The president can continue spying on the American people without a warrant in perpetuity!

Well, guess what. It turns out that even the Bush administration’s own jingoistic war-on-terror justification for immunity is bogus. You see, not all of the spying on Americans without a warrant has been about terrorism.

Let me say that again. Your government has been spying on Americans without a warrant, sometimes for reasons having nothing to do with terrorism.

George W. Bush’s National Security Agency (NSA) has been using telecommunications corporations to spy on Americans’ phone calls without a warrant in order to catch drug smugglers:

The N.S.A.’s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before, according to government and industry officials, yet that alliance is strained by legal worries and the fear of public exposure.

To detect narcotics trafficking, for example, the government has been collecting the phone records of thousands of Americans and others inside the United States who call people in Latin America, according to several government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. But in 2004, one major phone carrier balked at turning over its customers’ records. Worried about possible privacy violations or public relations problems, company executives declined to help the operation, which has not been previously disclosed.

In a separate N.S.A. project, executives at a Denver phone carrier, Qwest, refused in early 2001 to give the agency access to their most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls, according to people aware of the request, which has not been previously reported. They say the arrangement could have permitted neighborhood-by-neighborhood surveillance of phone traffic without a court order, which alarmed them.

Did you catch that “in early 2001″ in the last paragraph? Yes, Virginia, wiretapping Americans without a warrant was going on before the attacks of September 11, 2001. This new program of government spying on American citizens is not actually new, and it predated the War on Terror. Now we know that the government is spying on Americans without a warrant simply in order to stop garden-variety crime in the War on Drugs, which like the War on Terror is not actually a war at all, but a euphemism designed to obfuscate the erosion of Americans’ civil liberties.

Like the invasion of Iraq, this unconstitutional activity was planned by the Bush administration from the get-go. A network technician is prepared to testify in federal court that:

“What he saw,” said Bruce Afran, a New Jersey lawyer representing the plaintiffs along with Carl Mayer, “was decisive evidence that within two weeks of taking office, the Bush administration was planning a comprehensive effort of spying on Americans’ phone usage.”

But if this lawsuit is nullified by legislative action, that decisive evidence will never see the light of day. If this lawsuit and others like it are made impossible, then no court will ever be able to review the program or pass judgment on its constitutionality. If a bill prohibiting lawsuits is passed, then the United States government will be able to conduct whatever surveillance it wishes against American citizens without any recourse for citizens.

Do you trust your government to spy on you without a warrant? Do you trust your government to spy on you in a manner that courts cannot review? Do you trust unchecked power?

If your answer is no (and for anyone who has studied history the answer ought to be, “Hell, no!”), then you need to do something about it.

Now. Today.

Tomorrow, you may no longer have the right.

(Source: New York Times December 16 2007)