October 22, 2007 8:00 AM

Why Are the Big Telcos Suddenly Donating to Jay Rockefeller?

Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, is reportedly the driving force behind an effort to give big telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for illegally turning over customer information to the National Security Agency.

Now, you'll notice a very funny thing when you look at AT&T and Verizon's contributions to Senator Rockefeller, as noted in this great piece from Ryan Singel over at the WIRED blog.

Take a close look at the graphs in that article. Up until 2007, Verizon and AT&T executives had given practically nothing to Rockefeller. Then, in 2007 as they began lobbying for retroactive immunity, tens of thousands of dollars from those companies' execs suddenly start flowing to Rockefeller -- who will be standing for re-election in 2008.

Of course, since AT&T, Verizon and Bellsouth are looking at liability on the order of $200 billion for their actions, a few tens of thousands of bucks in campaign contributions are a pretty small price to pay for getting your lawbreaking excused after the fact. But Senator Rockefeller really should think long and hard about whether he should sell out the American people and their constitutional rights -- and for such a cheap price.

Take action today -- tell your representative and senators NOT to cave in to the Bush Administration's demands to retroactively excuse violations of your constitutional rights.