Why Removing Telecom Immunity is So Important

Well, I just read Olbermann’s rejoinder on FISA and man, http://www.dailykos.com/storyo… ,if he’d just check out wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P… he would know how fruitless the idea of criminal prosecutions is.  In short, Bush can pardon anybody from criminal prosecutions, charges pending or not.  All you have to do is recall Dick Nixon and what he got from Jerry Ford to know this.

Neglected is the beauty thing of a pardon:  if you accept, you are admitting guilt.  And under the res judicata doctrine (and because the standard of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases, is higher than civil cases (preponderance of evidence), you accept a pardon, you probably (I say probably since a court might hold you didn’t really litigate a case by accepting a pardon) lose your civil case.

So that is the real reason why civil immunity is so important.  Important to the telcoms, their owners and others involved, just so they can accept a pardon and run off scooter, I mean Scot, free.  Important to strip from the bill because it is the only means to keep these folks on the hook–and get their evidence.

If FISA passes, the only thing an Obama admin. could do is not challenge the Unconstitutionality of FISA.  But the telecom immunity would likely be severable and upheld.

Tell Obama no on immunity now.  http://my.barackobama.com/page…