Comments on: Senate Dems: Trial lawyers’ pockets more important than anti-terrorism legislation

By: Ted

Ted — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:04:44 +0000

1) If a corporation cannot rely upon a Department of Justice advisory that it is acting legally, what can it rely upon? (And it’s far from clear to me that the DOJ wasn’t right. What we’re seeing now is second-guessing that the telcos may eventually win, at some legal expense to their shareholders.)

2) Who says I’m blaming lawyers? I’m blaming legislators for punting their responsibility to unelected trial lawyers, and stating that it is bad public policy to put these decisions in the hands of trial lawyers, whose incentives are not aligned with what is best for the country.

By: spongeworthy_us

spongeworthy_us — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:26:33 +0000

At the risk of being repetitive, I again must take you to task for conflating blame which rightly belongs to the law and the legislators who made it, rather than, as you seem to insist, to the lawyers who seek to apply the law.

Why do you think that when the telcos violated the FISA law requiring a court order before wiretapping and now seek retroactive immunity via a new law, that it is somehow the fault of trial lawyers when the new law is derailed? That makes no sense whatsoever.

Lawyers are not and have not been (and I would hope never will be) writing legislation, in this case at least.

Sorry, bub but you’ve completely overreached on this one, a common problem with blogs.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:31:17 +0000

“But if so, that policy choice should be the decision of Congress, not of unaccountable trial lawyers”

Funny, I thought that was the policy choice Congress had *already made* by enacting the *existing* legislation.

All the telcos had to say was “looks great, guys, but we have to protect ourselves – come back with a court order.”

How hard was that?

And what happened to Qwest, the one telco that did that? Gov’t contracts withdrawn ….

By: Clueby4

Clueby4 — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:40:02 +0000

“Reasonable minds can differ”!?

Whatever helps you sleep, buddy. If you truely don’t understand how the telecom companies acted illegally, you have no right to claim yourself to be reasonable.

And what’s worst, we still have people parroting the word “Terrorism”. When it been well covered that the surveillance program was in play before 9/11. For citations google “Poindexter”

By: Cathy

Cathy — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:56:36 +0000

Your update sounds sensible, at least to the extent of questioning whether we want companies who cooperate with the government to be subject to citizens’ private rights of action. Still, citing the trial bar as a factor in the policy decision is needlessly cynical and obfuscates the issue. The Senators who pulled the bill didn’t do it at their behest, and if the answer to the question of whether we do want private rights of action against such companies does turn out to be yes (as many, many private citizens believe), then we’re going to need those trial lawyers’ help.

By: David Schwartz

David Schwartz — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:16:58 +0000

Wow, I have to totally disagree on this one. This has nothing to do with greedy trial lawyers and everything to do with phone companies that don’t give a damn about privacy and want to curry favor with regulators.

Congress already made it clear that they are accountable for conspiring with the government if they don’t go through the proper legal channels and are totally immune from suit if they do.

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:46:08 +0000

Anderson: That may be why non-Aristotelian logic prevales among the wise.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:52:19 +0000

Seeing everything through the “greedy trial lawyers” lens means seeing some things very badly, or not at all.

I don’t think it does Mr. Frank any credit to appear so crudely reductive.

I would prefer that companies not break the law, even if the President asks them to. The “rule of law” is now a scheme of the greedy trial lawyers? Shame on Aristotle ….

By: chris w.

chris w. — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:48:35 +0000

I am normally firmly in the Overlawyered camp, but not on this issue.

In this instance I am all for trial lawyers making this short-sighted decision on the part of large telecom conglomerates a very, very painful one. Harry Reid may be doing it for the wrong reasons, but I certainly don’t want these companies to be granted immunity of any sort.

By: John Beaty

John Beaty — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:41:56 +0000

Gosh, Heather you are so right on! No-one could have ANY dispute about ANY bill without supporting overseas terrorist organizations! How clever of you to figure that out. When are YOU going to run for office?