To the editor:

Regardless of how the Republican administration tries to parse the warrantless wiretapping issue, immunity from civil or criminal charges arising from past, present or future actions by the telecommunication carriers is wrong and indefensible. Does the administration imagine that the American people will actually believe that these huge telecom corporations, with their vast legal resources, assisted in secret surveillance programs, sometimes of United States citizens, in “good faith” based only on the “assurances” of the executive branch that these programs were legal? Surely the telecom corporations considered these demands from the government a little more seriously than that.

The principle of cooperating with a legal request from our government is well established. It is precisely the legality of those specific requests, made by the government, that are likely to be brought to light and answered by allowing the pending lawsuits against the telecom corporations to go forward. Those are answers that the American people deserve and demand. Immunity would deny American citizens that remedy.

Certainly our law enforcement agencies need the tools to ensure our nation’s security, but that security is meaningless if the rights guaranteed in the Constitution are subverted in the process. Any surveillance of a United States citizen must be accompanied by real, immediate and independent judicial oversight. That is one of the indispensable safeguards, a fundamental mechanism described in our Constitution, that helps ensure the liberty and freedoms guaranteed every American citizen. Anything less is not only unacceptable but is also unconstitutional. Tell Congress, no immunity.

Mark Stone,

Lawrence