Wednesday, August 08, 2007

OpinionJournal - Featured Article

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: "For example, the new law does not offer explicit liability protection for telecom companies that cooperate with the wiretap program. Instead, the most Democrats would accept is language to 'compel' the cooperation of these companies going forward. The Administration hope is that this 'I had no choice' claim will be an adequate defense against future lawsuits, but in the U.S. tort lottery that is no sure thing.
Meantime, Democrats blocked any retroactive liability protection for companies that thought they were doing their patriotic duty by cooperating with the National Security Agency after 9/11. The goal here isn't merely to open another rich target for the tort bar. It is to use lawsuits to raise the costs for private actors of cooperating with the executive branch. Even if they lose at the ballot box or in Congress, these antiwar activists still might be able to hamstring the executive via the courts."

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