I consider Ben Civiletti a friend. We both serve on the Lexis Nexis-Martindale legal advisory board and I have spent four days a year with him and his wife and the other board members for the past ten years -- most recently last month in Madrid.

His ethics are the highest and I have tremendous respect for him.  In fact, I often seek out his opinions on a variety of political and legal topics because he's very smart and I know he has put careful thought into them.

Mr. Bush concluded that this was essential for protecting the country, that using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act would not permit the necessary speed and agility, and that he had the constitutional power to authorize such surveillance without court orders to defend the country.

Bush may have concluded that. Did the telcos really conclude that too? Or did they calculate that if they went along with what the administration wanted, even if it was clearly against the law, they'd be protected and rewarded for it? If it's really so clear that it was legal, the lawsuits will fail. Let them go to court like "citizens" without lobbyists and insider friends have to do when lawsuits are filed against them. No political protection for them. Let them face the fallout of their actions - let the chips fall where they may. Even if they acted from the best of intentions, others in future will be more persuaded to follow the actual law and presidents will be persuaded to get laws changed instead of simply ignoring the inconvenient ones.

From its earliest days, the common law recognized that when a public official calls on a citizen to help protect the community in an emergency, the person has a duty to help and should be immune from being hauled into court unless it was clear beyond doubt that the public official was acting illegally.

For one thing, emergencies that might excuse skirting the law don't last for years. And secondly, the telcos aren't "citizens" - they're corporate entities, and ones deeply entwined in the politicized corruption of this administration, which holds out to them on the one hand the promise of support for their push for a tiered Internet and the vast lucre that would ensue, and on the other prosecution for those who don't comply.

As the Intelligence Committee found, the companies clearly acted in "good faith."

Um, the intelligence committee members are interested actors here - any malfeasance that Bush and the telcos engaged in tars them too if they went along with it and didn't do everything in their power to bring it to the light of day.