Let’s start with the bio:

John Ashcroft was the United States attorney general from 2001 to 2005. He now heads a consulting firm that has telecommunications companies as clients.

Hey, I wonder if Ashcroft’s firm funnelled any money to Rockefeller? That would be too, too funny, wouldn’t it?

And now the nut graf from Crisco Johnny’s at-this-point entirely predictable Op-Ed from the Times:

If the attorney general of the United States says that an intelligence-gathering operation has been determined to be lawful…

Note the very revealing use of the passive voice. Determined by whom? Some Federalist Society operative chained up in Cheney’s dungeon under the Naval Observatory?

We know that Bush bypassed the “sole means” for determining legality, the FISA Court, until 2006, when Democrats got elected to Congress. So, when the telcos were briefed that Bush’s program of warrantless surveillance was legal, did they ask “Who made the determination and why?” If they did, I want to know the answer, and so should Congress. If they did not, they were negligent, and should be held to account.

… a company should be able to rely on that determination.

Isn’t it pretty to think so.

“Should,” indeed, except in the unlikely event that the government has been taken over by a gang of criminals.

Like now.

Anyhow, if you’ve got an executive department that believes, just as Nixon did, that “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal,” what the Attorney General “says,” and a dime, will get you a cup of coffee.

What is it we learned back in civics class? “Ignorance of the law is no excuse?” Qwest figured the warrantless surveillance program was illegal, no matter what anyone from the Bush White House “said.” Why couldn’t the other telcos? Were their legal departments underpaid? Or did greed unman them? As it looks like it has Ashcroft?

Make no mistake: Retroactive immunity for the telcos means the end of the rule of law for corporations.* Once the door opens, the corps are going to be lining up for immunity for the next set of crimes, and the next, and the next, and the next. You can see the scam Ashcroft is setting up, right? President “says” something is legal—and with the theory of the unitary executive, signing statements, and secret laws, that could be damn near anything—and communicates his views to a corporation. Bang! Corporation gets immunity! (No doubt in return for a large campaign contribution.) No Congress, with all those pesky statutes! No Courts, with all those pesky judges!

Honestly, it reminds me of nothing so much as the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church before the Reformation, except the persons involved aren’t human, and the only hell is losing money….

Money money money. Money!

NOTE * There won’t be any such im[m|p]unity for the little guys, of course; just the corporations. If you call the IRS, and they give you bad advice, you’re still liable for the taxes no matter what. None of this “they said it was legal” nonsense for you, peon!