"Politics" is discrete from ethics. Condi is a pariah, ethically speaking-- a war criminal walking free.
Political links to the US govt are also a bit of a hazard-- the more you willingly approach them and enable them, the more they will take from your pocket and the more they will push you around. The Snowden leaks have painted a bad picture of the US companies as a result of their compliance with ridiculous government policy, and these companies are being scrutinized fiercely as a result.
The question is whether it is possible to run a significant business in the United States without interacting with the federal government. I don't think that it is.
It's not like ISPs and tech companies went to the NSA and offered up their data--there is no proof at all of that. What the evidence shows is that the government used its force of law to compel cooperation from these companies.
The people's tool for controlling the force of law is politics. So, being politically connected is an important part of playing defense against government action.
Whether Condoleeza Rice is the correct person to fulfill that role is in the eye of beholder. I certainly don't fault people for opposing any connection to her. But I would fault anyone who thinks that that is a universal sentiment. There are quite a few people (in government and out) who still respect and perhaps even like her.
"The question is whether it is possible to run a significant business in the United States without interacting with the federal government. I don't think that it is."
That may be true. It probably is true once you reach the numbers-beginning-in-B level.
Nevertheless, there are lots of political operatives, former officials, and other contacts you could find without stooping as low as a former member of the Bush administration.
I'm certainly no fan of hers but "war criminal" is a label that's thrown around way too often with no basis or grounding. It's too often used to describe someone who engaged in some kind of war someone else doesn't like, so they're labeled as such. The actual term stems from The Hague conventions, which were not violated by her or the U.S. in this case.
From Condi's Wikipedia article: A Senate Intelligence Committee reported that on July 17, 2002, Rice met with CIA director George Tenet to personally convey the Bush administration's approval of the proposed waterboarding of alleged Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah.
Direct approval of torture.
From Wikipedia's page on war crimes:
A war crime is a serious violation of the laws and customs of war (also known as international humanitarian law) giving rise to individual criminal responsibility. Examples of war crimes such as:[1]
murdering, mistreating, or deporting civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps
murdering or mistreating prisoners of war or civilian internees
Well, "war crime" is actually quite hard to apply to actions of the US, because they refuse to recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court in the Hague who decides whether these conventions were violated or not.
War crimes exist independently from the ICC. Plenty of Nazis were convicted of war crimes despite the ICC not existing and their government at the time of their actions not agreeing that genocide was a crime.
Political links to the US govt are also a bit of a hazard-- the more you willingly approach them and enable them, the more they will take from your pocket and the more they will push you around. The Snowden leaks have painted a bad picture of the US companies as a result of their compliance with ridiculous government policy, and these companies are being scrutinized fiercely as a result.