The proposed "Electronic Message Preservation Act": is it retro-active for 7 1/2 years?

[hisownpetard]

If not, I don't even want to read the patting-herself-on-the-back email I received from Nancy Pelosi.

It should be called the "Crying-Over-Spilt-Milk" Act or the "Who-Let-the-Horse-Out-of-the-Barn Act"
or the "WTF-Have-You-Been-Doing-Till-Now?" Act.

And were there not already laws in place about preservation of all government records, letters, emails, etc,
prior to the discovery of the millions of "missing" BushCo. emails?

[Pab Sungenis]

1. You can't make a law retroactive.

That's what's going to kill the Telecom Immunity.

[hisownpetard]

2. Exactly!

[Igel]

3. You can't criminalize something retroactively.

Telecom immunity doesn't criminalize anything.

I've seen the "bill of attainder" language cited as also kicking telecom immunity in the head, but it's built on the same kind of fairness and due-process basis that banning ex post facto laws is. (Sorry for the awkward syntax.) You can't make a law singling out a person and stipulating his punishment. Denial of compensation for non-monetary damages caused by an infringed right isn't the same as improperly punishing a person for wrongdoing.

If telecom immunity dies it'll die ultimately for the same reason that I believe SCOTUS affirmed habeas at Gitmo: The judiciary is jealous of its power and seeks to protect it, and will not easily allow Congress to infringe on its rights.