Studs Terkel writes in the New York Times today, that the current government wiretapping defies a 1978 law. In "The Wiretap the Time", Terkel argues persuasively that the case should be allowed to go to court. Mr. Terkel is a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits against the telephone companies that conducted broad wiretapping on behalf of the Bush administration.
The administration has been seeking to grant immunity to the telephone companies to protect them from such lawsuits, a move that critics say would set a dangerous precedent. The Senate has spent significant effort fighting the administration to gain access to key documents in order to proceed with the case. Civil liberties groups argue that the government is trying to cover-up possible wrongdoing.'"Immunity suggests that there's been a violation of the law and they want to be absolved from any liability," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told reporters. "I would like to know what happened before I absolve anyone from liability."'
Mr. Terkel, 95, speaks of the wiretapping that he's witnessed in the past century, the Palmer raids in 1920, the Bureau of Investigation raids, the Red Scare McCarthy era of the 1950's, in which Terkel was blacklisted and disallowed from working in television and radio "after refusing to say that I had been "duped" into signing my name to these causes."
In defiance of the 4th amendment, Bush has gutted the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, its "legal structure and social contract", says Terkel. Of his century of experience he writes: "nothing much surprises me anymore. But I always feel uplifted by this: Given the facts and an opportunity to act, the body politic generally does the right thing."
