Glenn Greenwald: Fred Hiatt's concern over "costly litigation" for AT&T and Verizon

[babylonsister]

Fred Hiatt's concern over "costly litigation" for AT&T and Verizon

(updated below)

Of all the dumb and dishonest arguments in favor of telecom amnesty -- and there are many -- the dumbest and most dishonest is that it is unfair to subject telecoms to the "high costs" of defending against these lawsuits. It should come as no surprise, then, that this is the principal argument The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt advances today in his latest call for telecom amnesty:

As we have said, we do not believe that these companies should be held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially a complaint about administration activities.

In 2005, the total revenue of Verizon -- from telephone services alone -- was $75 billion. ATT's total 2006 revenue was $63 billion. Whatever the "costs" of defending these lawsuits are, it is a minscule -- really undetectable -- amount to these companies. Whatever the telecoms' motives are in wanting amnesty for their lawbreaking, being relieved from "costly litigation" has nothing to do with it.

Trite pseudo-populist rhetoric about the "high costs" of litigation might work when it comes to lawsuits against small businesses or individuals. There, attorneys fees and other expenses really do make lawsuits expensive to defend. But they still have to go to court to prove they did nothing wrong. That is what it means to live under "the rule of law."

And telecom lawsuits could be "costly" if telecoms are found -- without any good faith basis -- to have broken the law and/or violated the constitutional rights of their customers. But to claim that telecoms like AT&T or Verizon -- whose revenues are measured in the tens of billions of dollars -- care in the slightest about "litigation costs" from a single set of lawsuits is just preposterous, really just a stupid thing to say.

more...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/27/litigation_costs/

[williesgirl]

1. About what to expect from Fred Hiatt - Meg is turning over in her grave. rec'd