and so it goes

from The New York Times Editorial Board:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Congress there would be no criminal investigation into waterboarding. He said the Justice Department decided waterboarding was legal (remember the torture memo?) and told the C.I.A. that.

So, according to Mukaseyan logic, the Justice Department cannot investigate those who may have committed torture, because the Justice Department said it was O.K. and Justice cannot be expected to investigate itself.

As it was with torture, so it was with wiretaps.


via Laura Rozen @ War & Piece:

And expected later this month, the rest of the long awaited Phase-II investigation. On wiretapping, and the issue of retroactive telco community, the committee chairman has got the intelligence community rabbis, the White House, the Justice Department, the Republicans, half the Democrats, the telcos, the lobbyists, and some staff lawyers on one side, and I guess, four bloggers, the electronic frontier foundation, the ACLU, a couple Democratic senators, and the odd newspaper editorial on the other, and a public mostly in the dark. And probably plenty of Democrats consider this a no-win issue and are hoping to have the whole issue off the radar.

---

from Glenn Greenwald:

There is an honest way to argue in favor of telecom amnesty, and it is, of course, exactly what amnesty advocates desperately avoid. This is the only honest case one can make for this radical gift to telecoms:

Yes, telecoms violated multiple federal laws by enabling government spying on Americans and turning over communications data without warrants. They broke these laws not only in the aftermath of 9/11, but for years and years. By breaking these laws, they reaped enormous financial profits, as the Government paid them huge fees for their cooperation in the illegal spying program. Despite their having broken multiple federal laws and having committed felonies -- while reaping great profits in the process -- they ought to be granted retroactive amnesty and immunized from any consequences for their lawbreaking, otherwise they may be reluctant to break our laws in the future.