So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
Matt 12:27-30
Jesus used this wonderful parable to help the Jews understand that though it may appear sometimes that people may have gained an advantage by behaving unethically, God is all knowing. So those who attempt to deceive will ultimately get their just reward. We don’t have to see God’s judgment to know that it is at work. We simply have to trust that Truth is always more powerful than error.
So I am grateful that in these waning days of the Bush presidency, more and more of the tares that were planted by this administration are starting to appear.
One of them involves our phone companies and the National Security Administration.
Shortly after President Bush took office and before 9/11, the NSA went to the phone companies and asked for their records. The NSA wanted to use those records to identify patterns of communication that could potentially reveal terrorist activity. That is all fine and good, except that it is illegal.
Qwest refused because they knew it was illegal. In return for upholding the law, Qwest claims that the government punished them by awarding a hundred million dollar contract for which they were the front runner to other companies. The interesting irony is that all of this information came out during Quest CEO Joe Nacchio’s appeal of a conviction for insider trading.
AT&T and Verizon gave the NSA what it wanted (and charged them for it). They knew it was illegal too.
Once the news was leaked, AT&T and Verizon started getting sued by some of their subscribers for violating their privacy. What did AT&T and Verizon do? Did they apologize, admit their wrongdoing, and seek some monetary settlement with those they wronged?
NO!
Instead they took that huge amount of money and gave it to the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, John Rockefeller. He promptly introduced a bill which gave these companies and their executives immunity from prosecution all way back to just before they started providing this information to the NSA. That bill hasn’t gone anywhere yet, but it would be good to keep an eye out for a late night maneuver to get it buried in some other innocuous bill and quietly signed by the President.
There is certainly some delicious self-righteousness in seeing the powerful held accountable for their deceptions.
There is also a fair bit of anticipation about what else might be out there. It is Harvest time after all.
Ultimately, though, there is no joy in seeing the tares burned. It would have been much better if they had never been planted.
This entry was posted
on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 9:28 pm and is filed under Politics, Terrorism.
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