FreedomQwest

DENVER, Jan. 2, 2008 - The Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) and Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE: Q) announced today that Qwest has been named as the official telecommunications provider for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, to be held Aug. 25-28 in Denver. In that role, Qwest will provide the network and people to help link the Convention to a nationwide and worldwide audience.

"Qwest has been a longtime partner of the Denver business community - and today we are proud to call them our partner, too," said Leah D. Daughtry, CEO of the DNCC. "Qwest's state-of-the-art network and skilled union labor force will play a significant role in helping us deliver a spectacular event to the American people and media outlets around the world."

She might have added that Qwest was the only telecom to value our freedoms and refuse to comply with illegal data requests from the government without a court order.

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No Immunity for Telecoms

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who sits on the Select Committee on Intelligence, said the administration's case for immunity is thin. Members of the intelligence and judiciary committees have been permitted to see a set of the classified documents that lay out the administration's legal opinions on immunity and its information requests to companies.

"I have read the documents and senators who haven't read them would be shocked to see how flimsy the case is on which the administration bases its case for immunity," said Wyden, who is prevented from discussing the details of the documents because they are classified. "As far as I can tell, these documents are being kept secret to protect the president's political security, not national security."

- FOX News

The telecoms argue that they didn't know they had the right to refuse to hand over personal data. That they didn't have leverage against a big ol' gummint coming to them demanding it. Yet one of the smallest of them, Qwest, refused. Told those gummint guys to get a court order. Never heard from 'em again.

I'm not saying there's never a reason for the feds to get this kind of info, only that there need to be controls. If the White House can run roughshod over private businesses, who are lilylivered and choose to be run over, and then are protected from the results of those actions, might as well chuck the 1st amendment and any right to privacy.

Of course, them Republickans don't believe in a right to privacy (the legal basis for Roe v. Wade).

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