The WaPo's editorial board seems to believe congressional Dems on the right track with their "RESTORE Act," unveiled this week, but sides with the Bush administration on a key sticking point.

There is one major area of disagreement between the administration and House Democrats where we think the administration has the better of the argument: the question of whether telecommunications companies that provided information to the government without court orders should be given retroactive immunity from being sued. House Democrats are understandably reluctant to grant that wholesale protection without understanding exactly what conduct they are shielding, and the administration has balked at providing such information. But the telecommunications providers seem to us to have been acting as patriotic corporate citizens in a difficult and uncharted environment.

It's a confusing argument. We know that the telecoms weren't just motivated by "patriotism" during a "difficult" post-9/11 period, but were in fact cooperating with the NSA long before the 2001 terrorist attacks. We know this, of course, because the WaPo ran a front-page story on this just yesterday.

Indeed, this same front-page article suggests the telecoms that were playing ball with the NSA weren't necessarily driven by national service, but rather the corporate desire to secure lucrative contracts that were in jeopardy unless the companies obliged administration requests.

So, what's the argument here? That Congress should provide retroactive immunity to companies that cooperated in secret with the NSA to violate customers' privacy rights, apparently in violation of the law, before a national emergency? That these companies should be entirely shielded from responsibility, before lawmakers even understand what exactly transpired?

This is what the WaPo finds persuasive?

Update: Glenn Greenwald has more, including a solid analysis of how seriously (or, in this case, not) the DC establishment takes the rule of law.