Companies Seeking Immunity Donate to Senator
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While seeking the support of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV for legal immunity for participating in National Security Agency eavesdropping, two major phone companies held fund-raisers for him.
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Rewards could be offered to people who inform on companies or individuals defrauding the government.
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A group of U.S. senators on Tuesday sought $300 million in U.S. spending to combat tuberculosis while new tests confirmed that the U.S. man at the center of an international TB alarm is not highly infectious.
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Civil liberties and media reform group Free Press called on the U.S. Congress to reject bills that would give retroactive legal immunity to telecommunication carriers that helped the government monitor phone calls and e-mail after Vice President Dick Cheney pushed for the legislation.Cheney and the White House this week pushed Congress to extend the surveillance authorization bill, the Protect America Act, which expires on Feb. 1. Cheney, speaking Wednesday at conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, also called on Congress to grant legal immunity to telecom carriers that participated in a U.S. National Security Agency program that allowed the NSA to intercept communications of some U.S. residents without court authorization.It&#39;s &quot;entirely appropriate&quot; for U.S. intelligence agencies to seek help from private-sector companies, because agencies don&#39;t have the facilities to conduct all the surveillance needed to keep the United States safe, Cheney said in the speech, made available on YouTube.&quot;Some [telecom] providers are facing dozens of lawsuits right now,&quot; Cheney said. &quot;Why? Because they are believed to have aided the U.S. government in the effort to intercept international communications of al Qaeda-related individuals.&quot;Even if the lawsuits are dismissed, defending them will place an &quot;enormous burden&quot; on telecom providers, and the lawsuits could stop other companies from cooperating with U.S. authorities in the future, Cheney added. &quot;Liability protection, retroactive to [the Sept. 11 attacks] is the right thing to do, it&#39;s the right thing to help us prevent another 9/11 down the road,&quot; he said.AT&amp;T and other telecom carriers are being sued in U.S. court in San Francisco by civil liberties groups and individuals who allege that the surveillance program is illegal.Free Press countered Cheney&#39;s remarks by saying telecom carriers should be held accountable for illegal spying.&quot;Phone companies are supposed to deliver our messages, not spy on them,&quot; Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, said in a statement. &quot;But at every turn, these telco giants trample on basic constitutional principles of privacy and free speech. When you break the law, you should face the consequences.&quot;The lawsuits will show U.S. residents that phone company spying &quot;will not be tolerated,&quot; he added.The American Civil Liberties Union has called the Protect America Act, the &quot;Police America Act.&quot; The legislation &quot;allows for massive, untargeted collection of international communications without court order or meaningful oversight by either Congress or the courts,&quot; the ACLU says on its Web site. &quot;It contains virtually no protections for the U.S. end of the phone call or e-mail, leaving decisions about the collection, mining, and use of Americans&#39; private communications up to this administration.&quot;Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, said Wednesday he&#39;ll block the legislation with a filibuster if it comes to the Senate floor with telecom immunity provisions attached.&quot;Few things are more detrimental to this country than the erosion of and attack on the civil liberties we enjoy,&quot; Dodd said in a statement. &quot;More and more, Americans are rejecting the false choice that has come to define this administration: security or liberty, but never, ever both.&quot;
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More than two dozen top fund-raisers for President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry are current or former senior managers of companies punished for trading with Iran or Saddam Hussein's Iraq &#151; including the chairman of Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Committee and Kerry's fund-raising chairman.
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President George W. Bush's demand for immunity for telephone companies that participated in his warrantless domestic spying program won an initial vote on Monday in the Senate.
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Gov. Ernie Fletcher, mired in a yearlong hiring probe, can create a fund to accept donations to help pay his legal fees from criminal charges that were dismissed, an ethics panel said Friday.
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Senator Hillary Rodham Clintonâs campaign said it would give away thousands that it received from a Democratic donor who is considered a fugitive in California.
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Government officials called the immunity a potentially serious investigative misstep that could complicate efforts to prosecute the companyâs employees.
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Officials at Commerce Insurance, the state's largest auto insurer, contributed thousands of dollars to two influential Democratic state senators up for reelection this year, according to state campaign finance records filed this month.
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NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Former star technology banker Frank Quattrone has asked a federal appeals court to seal some letters written in his support in order to protect his family&#39;s privacy.
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The Democratic-led U.S. Senate will approve President George W. Bush's demand that telephone companies that participated in his warrantless domestic spying program receive retroactive immunity from lawsuits, a top lawmaker predicted on Wednesday.
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One of the Senate's most prolific campaign fund-raisers is turning his attention to collecting millions for the Republican Party's 2006 election efforts.
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Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is donating to charity a $5,000 contribution to his 2004 Senate campaign from an indicted former Illinois official, a spokesman said Friday.
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Los Angeles Times - WASHINGTON &#8212; The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee recently discovered that dozens of contribution checks &#8212; some for as much as &#36;25,000 &#8212; were diverted from its coffers to a private bank account, officials said Thursday.
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NASD, which is the regulatory arm of the Nasdaq stock market, and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating about two dozen firms, including brokerage firms and mutual fund companies, to determine whether brokers handed out expensive gifts
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WASHINGTON -- All five members of the Securities and Exchange Commission are being asked by Congress to defend the watchdog agency against accusations that it may be tilting toward business interests and away from investors.