Glenn Greenwald explains to Fred Hiatt why telecoms certainly can afford to litigate the wiretapping charges:
In the NSA cases, AT&T is being represented by Sidley & Austin (.pdf), a large, fairly standard corporate law firm. Because there are multiple telecoms as defendants in these suits, the litigation costs, in some respects, end up being shared. Even assuming that these cases are generating unusually high fees, and even using net income as the standard, the “litigation costs” to telecoms is completely negligible. It does not even show up on the financial radar. If the non-profit EFF can manage to prosecute these lawsuits, AT&T and Verizon can obviously easily defend them (and indeed, it is almost certainly the case that the litigation costs borne by these litigious corporations from the lawsuits they commence against others vastly outweigh the costs they are incurring from defending the illegal surveillance suits).
The real point, of course, is that corporations — just as is true for ordinary citizens and small companies — can dramatically reduce their chances of being subjected to long, protracted litigation by obeying the law. Hiatt’s rationale — it’s so unfair to make these poor corporations endure the costs of litigation — would “justify” granting general amnesty to corporations for all illegal behavior, i.e., it would eviscerate the rule of law. We want there to be a price to pay when private actors violate the law. But the “price” which AT&T, Verizon and others are paying from “litigation costs” is so minuscule that to cite it as a reason to give amnesty is either incredibly ignorant or purposefully dishonest.
Won’t they just tack those costs on to our bills?
i choose “purposefully dishonest”.
No immunity without cooperation: the telecoms must testify to the relevant congressional committees…