US confirms key role of telecom firms in wiretapping

Boston Globe ^ | 8/24/07 | Eric Lichtblau

[Santa Fe_Conservative]

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has confirmed for the first time that American telecommunications companies played a crucial role in the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program after asserting for more than a year that any role played by the companies was a state secret.

The acknowledgement was made in an unusual interview that Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, conducted with The El Paso Times last week in which he disclosed details on classified intelligence issues that the administration has long insisted would harm national security if discussed publicly.

He made the remarks, an apparent effort to bolster support for the broadened wiretapping authority Congress approved this month, even as Democrats are threatening to rework the legislation. They say it gives the executive branch too much power.

It is vital, McConnell said, for Congress to give retroactive legal immunity to the companies that assisted in the NSA eavesdropping program to help prevent them from facing bankruptcy because of lawsuits over the program.

[Dutchgirl]

It is vital, McConnell said, for Congress to give retroactive legal immunity

I'd much rather see immunity to phone companies rather than the illegal alien immunity Mcconnell has been pushing for lately...welcome back to the conservative side, Mitch.

[plain talk]

That was Mike McConnell not Mitch.