The obviously most radioactive of such programs would have been shadowing political opponents. We know Nixon did it, and we know many of the people involved lately were Nixon henchmen. The point of monitoring one’s political opponents is not to know their plans, but to discover details one can use to extort behavior you would prefer, or just to drive them from office. We see hints, again, in the treatment of former New York governor Spitzer, outed by top Republican “ratfucker” Roger Stone. Use of such methods was the basis of J. Edgar Hoover’s entire career.

One behavior one might use extortion to enforce is voting against one’s own or one’s party’s interest — such as voting in favor of a bill to cover up illegal activities. That, in fact, is the only way I have been able to understand the landslide support for this bill against serious, committed opposition that would have derailed any normal measure.

it’s absolutely true that if it would have cost them money they would have pushed back (in fact I imagine that they charged the government for their services, but the revenue would have been tiny for them). But I’m still not sure they should face legal liability.

The Nuremberg defense was held to be invalid because the accused were guilty of war crimes. War crimes are fairly extreme–the very notion of a crime during war is rather strange, considering that war treats as normal actions which receive the harshest penalties during peacetime. As you say, wiretapping, albeit with a court order, is relatively normal activity. Even in the absence of a court order it does not rise to the level of a war crime.

I don’t have a knockdown argument for my position. It’s just an expression of what seems right to me.

As far as punitive measures against the current mis-administration …
It seems like the whole of America is in a “grin and bear it” mode as far seeing the last of Bush goes. I really don’t understand why.

A few (many?) months back Nancy Pelosi and others were clamouring for the impeachment of Bush. Then recently she said “impeachment is off of the table” ?! All I can say is “birds of a feather ….”.
Bush seems to act with impunity and fears nothing (and no one seems to care except dudes like me(us?) who hide behind keyboards all day long).

Hopefully Mr.Change will turn out to be more than just talk – but I’m certainly not holding my breath.

I am not so sure about this as a blanket statement.

It is one thing if you are given an order by someone in authority in a moment of crisis. There, you may not have time to think.

But that is not the case here. Telecom companies have lots of lawyers. They are legally sophisticated out of necessity, and furthermore must surely be completely aware of the laws surrounding wiretapping — because they comply with the letter of these laws routinely, servicing law enforcement requests and the like.

That is, they cannot have any claim to ignorance. Also, who do these laws constrain, if not the owners of telecom equipment? I think it would be absurd to have a situation where I personally am legally at risk if I wiretap my neighbor, but a telecom company is not at risk for the same actions, just because someone (with no legal authority) told them to do it.

Not to get all Godwin on you, but this sounds like the Nuremberg defense to me.

Finally, corporations have no problem pushing back against the government when they feel their interests are on the line. This happens all the time. I don’t think they should get a pass just because it was convenient for them to break the law this time.

I agree that the people in the government pushing this are unlikely to be punished. I find this very disturbing. Accountability is out the window.