week. [A] civil action may not lie or be maintained in a Federal or State court against any person for providing assistance to an element of the intelligence community, and shall be properly dismissed, if the Attorney General certifies to the district court of the United States in which such action is pending that [snip] (4) the assistance alleged to have been provided by the electronic communication service provider was --  (A) in connection with intelligence activity involving communications that was (i) authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007 and (ii) designed to prevent or detect a terrorist attack, or activities in preparation of a terrorist attack, against the United States" and (B) the subject of a written request or directive, or a series of written requests or directives, from the Attorney General or the head of an element of the intelligence community (or the deputy of such person) to the electronic communication service provider indicating that the activity was (i) authorized by the President; and (ii) determined to be lawful. Look at the language carefully. It doesn't say, "Michael Mukasey, a conservative and complicit -- but still a once-respectable -- lawyer, must review the program and certify that the program was legal." Rather, it says that, for the telecoms to receive their immunity, the Attorney General (Mukasey) only has to certify that at the time the Administration requested the telecoms' assistance , they were told, in writing, that