If the government asks you to break a law, should you get immunity?

The case of telecommunications companies who assented to government wiretaps without warrants is a hard case. On the one hand, it is reprehensible that telecoms agreed so readily to give up their customer's privacy without a court order. On the other hand, in the shadow of 9/11, is it surprising that people erred on the side of hurting the cause of the terrorist? Congress has been in an ongoing battle over whether the companies that went along with warrantless wiretaps should be offered retroactive immunity. Now, the Senate has passed a bill giving immunity. The House Bill lacks this language, but it is expected to eventually pass both houses.

Approval of the amendment would have exposed the companies to privacy lawsuits for helping the administration monitor the calls of suspected terrorists without warrants from a special court following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The amendment was one of a series the Senate is considering today to modify legislation that would extend the government's authority to carry out electronic surveillance against targets outside the United States.

President Bush has called on Congress to rapidly renew the surveillance authority granted to the federal government in the Protect America Act approved last year. But he has vowed to veto any bill that does not shield the companies that helped the government carry out the warrantless wiretapping program he ordered after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Two questions immediately come to mind. First, how does this act pass the Constitutional ban on ex-post-facto laws? Second, how could Congress have done anything else? The telecoms were essentially drawn in under an Entrapment situation.