Business Is Business

I guess these days it can't be too surprising that patriotism only goes so far. Sure, it's great to hide behind your country's skirts when you need to, but if it's costing you money, enough's enough. That's what some phone companies said to the FBI when they cut off surveillance of suspected criminals when the bills were running late. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine wrote in an audit:

We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence.

Admittedly, the late payments do seem to have been a problem. According to the report, "more than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time." That'll add up to a fair amount of money. But if an industry is ready to spy on its own customers in the name of patriotism, surely it can allow let a few bills slide for a few months out of love of country. Especially when there are active investigations at stake. Assistant FBI Director John Miller assures us that, although active surveillance investigations were indeed interrupted when the telecoms turned off the lines, none of the lost surveillance was that important. Of course, that's exactly what you'd expect him to say, but there you go.

At what point does the movement to offer immunity to the telecoms get too embarrassing to continue? Will we just add obstruction of justice for interfering with active investigations to the charges they're immune to? Or will this somehow never even become part of the conversation.