Pay up; no free spying

America's telecommunications giants might cower before the Bush administration when it comes to respecting their customers' constitutional rights, but there are no pushovers in their collections departments.

The polite phrase is "untimely payment," and the FBI was so, um, untimely in paying its bills, the telecoms pulled the plugs on the federal deadbeats. They yanked the phone lines used for wiretaps and eavesdropping on foreign and domestic citizens. Given the size of the federal budget deficit, the companies might want to wait until the checks clear before they obey future wiretap requests.

If AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies are embarrassed — again — they ought to be. In August, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell confirmed in a newspaper interview the private sector had assisted with the administration's eavesdropping program. Federal laws and legal procedures for wiretapping have been in place since the late 1970s, but the president ignored them after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

A Democratic majority in Congress is scrutinizing that behavior for the first time in six years. Part of the current debate around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is an administration request for immunity for the cooperative companies.

The telecoms apparently do know how to say "no," but it is linked to accounts receivable, not respect for the law.