On October 24, 2007, your campaign spokesman said, “To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”
On June 20, 2008 you said, of retroactive immunity, “I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.”
As the largest grass-roots group on your campaign website, my.BarackObama.com, and in the spirit of your open/responsive government campaign pledges, we wish to share our ideas for how we may work together to further the goal of eliminating retroactive immunity from the FISA legislation scheduled for debate in the Senate next week. Although this is only one of the problems we see with legislation allows the government to wiretap the communications of its citizenry without a warrant, it’s the area we think we can help you the most.
First, Senator Obama, we ask that you make the same tools that we used to call undecided voters in Iowa and New Hampshire available for us to call our fellow citizens in West Virginia, Nebraska, Delaware, Florida and other states that have Senators committed to voting against the amendment that would strip telecom immunity. You have the tools and we have the people power. Together, we are confident we can bring Change; we can make the government listen to the people instead of the telecom lobbyists.
Second, Senator Obama, we ask that you attend the Senate debate and schedule floor time to speak about the violence done to the rule of law when Congress retroactively immunizes the illegal conduct of a special interest. We know you understand that justice should not be sold to the highest special interest bidder; we also know that you can persuade other Senators that are not so clear on the issue. Of course, if you do this, our committed members will surely capture the video of your inspiring oratory, load it to YouTube and spread your words to our friends and family far and wide. We trust in your ability to bring a new way of doing business to Washington and look forward to helping you make that Change a reality.
Senator Obama, the my.BarackObama.com caption reads, “I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington… I’m asking you to believe in yours.” We’re ready to put these words into practice.
Sometimes don’t add up. Another reason to be concerned is Obama’s lurch to the right on faith based initiatives.
But hey, who cares if the people most desperately in need of help get screwed, right? We’ll just pretend that the “faith-based” charities don’t discriminate, if that will help to get Obama elected.
It seems a federal court doesn’t quite agree with the Shrubya administration on FISA:
A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the “exclusive” means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law.
As a side note, this seems to be yet another example of the Bush administration simply doing whatever the hell they want anddaring someone to tell them no. This time, someone did. Only took seven years.
Keith Olbermann normally does a good job, but he appears to have drunk enough of the Obama koolaid that he’s incapable of being objective, as seen by his fawning coverage of Obama’s FISA retrenchment.
Olbermann makes the mistake of going head to head with Greenwald. Here’s an excerpt of Greenwald’s response.
What is most disturbing here is that people (including Olbermann) who for so long have vehemently criticized Democratic leaders for capitulating to Bush and trampling on the Constitution out of fear of looking “Weak” are now invoking that very excuse to justify what Obama is doing here (that’s what Olbermann explicitly did in his Kos reply). To excuse Obama’s conduct on that basis is to perpetuate Democratic complicity. Obama had — and will continue to have — a critical opportunity to reject and debunk that rancid framework, and it is his embrace of that framework here (”I’m going to give Bush what he wants and trample on the Constitution in order to avoid being ‘weak’”) that makes what Obama has done here so harmful and worthy of criticism.
Beyond that, there’s just no getting around the fact that the bill Obama is supporting is another nail in the coffin of Fourth Amendment protections and privacy rights, and — just as bad, if not worse — will almost certainly put an end to any opportunity to find out what Bush’s illegal spying entailed and to obtain a judicial ruling as to its illegality. This isn’t just another bad bill. It marks a disgraceful end — a cover-up — of one of the most extreme Bush lawbreaking scandals (combined with legalization of many of the criminal acts), and it is a disgraceful conclusion for which Democrats are largely responsible. It’s possible that Obama couldn’t have stopped it even with vigorous opposition — though it’s also possible that, as the leader of the Party, he could have — but either way, he is supporting not just a bad bill, but one that stomps on core constitutional liberties and which conceals and protects rampant lawbreaking.
I’ve written endlessly on all of the reasons why a John McCain presidency would be disastrous for this country. The entire last chapter of my book is devoted exclusively to documenting that fact. I have no doubt I will write much more on that topic between now and November. I still think that just as strongly. But basic honesty and adherence to one’s core political values compels criticism for what Obama is doing here, and it’s just distasteful and destructive — not to mention dangerous — for people to invoke patently false rationalizations in order to excuse or support what he’s doing.
Politico tells the truth about the turncoat Democrats who flip flopped on FISA in the House.
House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last week’s FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision, according to an analysis by MAPLight.org.
In March, the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity. But last week, 94 Democrats who supported the March amendment voted to support the compromise FISA legislation, which includes a provision that could let telecom companies that cooperated with the government’s warrantless electronic surveillance off the hook.
The 94 Democrats who changed their positions received on average $8,359 in contributions from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint from Jan. 2005 to March 2008, according to the analysis by MAPLight, a nonpartisan organization that tracks the connection between campaign contributions and legislative outcomes.
Just what we need - the “best” government blood money can buy. Bastards.
Emptywheel at FDL goes through the chronology now since the Senate has planned a FISA vote July 8. Read it and weep - and get working on your senators.
An excellent, must read opinion piece in the New York Times looks at the alleged “compromise” on FISA currently being debated in the halls of Congre$$.
The bill is not a compromise. The final details are being worked out, but all indications are that many of its provisions are both unnecessary and a threat to the Bill of Rights. The White House and the Congressional Republicans who support the bill have two real aims. They want to undermine the power of the courts to review the legality of domestic spying programs. And they want to give a legal shield to the telecommunications companies that broke the law by helping Mr. Bush carry out his warrantless wiretapping operation.
… Under the so-called compromise, the question of immunity would be decided by a federal district court — a concession by Mr. Bond, who originally wanted the FISA court, which meets in secret and is unsuited to the task, to decide. What is unacceptable, though, is that the district court would be instructed to decide based solely on whether the Bush administration certifies that the companies were told the spying was legal. If the aim is to allow a court hearing on the president’s spying, the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed — and the courts should be able to resolve them the way they resolve every other case. Republicans, who complain about judges making laws from the bench, should not be making judicial decisions from Capitol Hill.
