Is Cooperating with the Government Always a Good Thing?

[ihavenobias]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/is-cooperating-with-the-g_b_87212.html

Is Cooperating with the Government Always a Good Thing?
By Cenk Uygur

President Bush had a press conference last week to talk about why he needs a bill that immunizes telecommunication companies for breaking the law by allowing the government to wiretap people without getting warrants. Of course they need immunity because they broke the law. Otherwise immunity would be pointless.

In the press conference, in response to a question from a reporter, President Bush said:

"People are wondering why companies need liability protection. Well, if you cooperate with the government and then get sued for billions of dollars because of the cooperation, you're less likely to cooperate."
In Bush's mind, that's the end of the question. Of course, cooperation with the government is a good thing, so we have to make sure we encourage that. But what if cooperation with the government was a bad thing?

What if the government asked AT&T to tap Senator Kerry's phones during the 2004 election? What if a horny government worker asked Best Buy to set up cameras inside Terry Hatcher's house so he could watch her undress?

I give these obvious examples to prove that of course cooperation with the government is not always the desired outcome. It depends on whether the request is legal or not.

I wish we had some laws that could tell us whether a government request on wiretapping is legal or not. Oh yeah, we do. It's called FISA. And it specifically forbade the telecom companies from cooperating with the government if the government did not have a warrant.

Some companies like Qwest recognized this as the clearly illegal request that it was and refused to cooperate. Other companies chose to break the law and work with the Bush administration outside the bounds of the law. If they had done this in wiretapping political opponent's phones, we would all be outraged now (I assume and hope we would be outraged). But the Bush administration claims they did it to stop terrorists, so people have a different reaction... (for the rest, click the link at the top of the page)


www.theyoungturks.com

[Double T]

1. Since the Constitution was canceled in 2001, what's legal no longer matters.

[CherylK]

5. Sad but true! n/t

[baldguy]

2. No. Sometimes disobeying the govt is a good thing.

Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr proved that.

[hobbit709]

3. More like the other way around as far as I'm concerned.

"One of the hallmarks of being an American is a refusal to follow orders"-Walter Slezak

[trthnd4jstc]

4. This is why I say I usually follow the Law

I believe in Justice, over the Law. Justice is the Ideal that Right makes Right, and not Might. That Fairness will be had rather than the rule of Lies and Bullying. Justice creates Accord. The Law should always be just. Our system has a long way to go to handle the destructive aspects of Human Nature. I believe that we need a new Constitutional Convention to work to fix our system to make it more accountable, and democratic. I believe that the Law, unfortunately, can serve private interests over the public. Hence, I would say, not cooperating with the government, when it is acting unjustly, is operating for justice.

[ihavenobias]

6. And here I thought the answer was always yes, unless you hate freedom and America! ;)

Sorry. couldn't resist a joke.

[CherylK]

7. Ha, ha! :)

A lot of conservatives probably think that way and they are not joking!

[ihavenobias]

8. Exactly

They think we need to always bow our heads and not question. Everything is black and white. That's also why religious fundamentalists got married to the Republican party...they were a natural fit.

[CherylK]

9. Also sad but true! n/t

[bemildred]

10. Well, it's definitely optional. It's a free country, right?

Corporations OTOH owe their existence to the government, so they don't have much choice about it.

[ihavenobias]

11. Wait

do you mean to say that corporations HAVE to listen to the government even if the government asks them to break the law?

[drmeow]

12. They have a choice

but don't see any need not to. Its a case of "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine."

On the other hand, the threat of an audit, investigation, or regulation/deregulation could scare the be-jesus out of plenty of corps leading them to feel they have to cooperate (also means they bought the wrong Senators :))

The ultimately powerful can still make things pretty unpleasant for the very powerful.

But the reality is that the telecoms looked at the way the wind was blowing, did a cost/benefit analysis (what Bush can give me against whether Congress will wake up and slap my hand), and decided (pretty accurately) that they were safe. Frankly, the magnetic north of most corporation's moral compass is a dollar sign.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. "Is Cooperating with the Government Always a Good Thing?"

If you are talking about our current form of government, then NEVER.