Still fuming over the FISA sellout, and greatly disappointed by Barack Obama's "Yea" vote, I decided to do more research.
What I found did help a bit, but I'm still disgusted by the fact that the telecoms who illegally spied on us now have retroactive immunity.
What I found, the thing that helped me feel a tiny bit better about all this, was a statement by Barack Obama about why he decided to support the FISA bill.
In a nutshell, he voted for the bill because:
• it brings the FISA court back into the picture and demands compliance with the court;
and
• it requires the Inspectors General to investigate past misconduct, so maybe someone(s) -- other than the now-immune telecoms, of course -- will be exposed for their role(s) in the illegal wiretapping and perhaps even held accountable.
So he obviously put a great deal of thought into it and did what he felt was best for now. That's his prerogative.
But I still strongly oppose this legislation.
Sure, the FISA court is back as a requirement, but that never stopped the Bushies from sidestepping the court.
And the Inspectors General may launch an investigation, but we know that the Bushies are good at dodging any kind of proceedings through which they might be held accountable for their misdeeds. They just play the "state secrets" card, or the "executive privilege" card, like they're above the law. And they always seem to get away with it.
And the fact still stands that Congress gave the telecoms a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Imagine the outrage if Bill Clinton had illegally spied on us like Bush has. They probably would have used that to impeach Clinton all over again, not pass a bill supporting the activity.
But Bush -- with a 25% approval rating -- gets a free pass and a Congressional blessing. Why?
In an ideal world, Obama would have joined with Senators Russ Feingold, Chris Dodd, Pat Leahy, and others who firmly opposed the bill, and we would have seen a filibuster.
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views appear regularly in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated.
I agree, Ms. Mary, that the election centers around more than one issue. But Obama's "reasoning" is total bunk.
It does not bring everything back under FISA, because it was already under FISA.
The original law states that FISA is the exclusive means by which that surveillance may be conducted. That means that it was already "under FISA."
All this new bill does is restate the very same thing, that FISA is the "exclusive means." If the president ignored it the first time Congress said it, what gives anybody any reason to believe it will matter that they said it TWICE? "This time we really, really mean it."
The only reason it was not under FISA is because the president and telecoms ignored the statute and broke the law. And the "unitary executive theory" is still being practiced.
Obama has my vote, but he has a long way to go to earn back my trust and respect.
by
JC Garrett (38 articles, 62 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 558 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 9:56:59 AM
You're right - this election is not about one issue. It's about getting back our Democracy and shredding our Constitution with legislation such as this is NOT getting us closer to Democracy....
by
Dennis Kaiser (14 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 229 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 10:04:22 AM
Young and handsome. The willingness of the American electorate to nominate a person of color to the nation's highest office. A New Age. An Enlightenment. A Renaissance. All the rhetoric of "hope and change".
A sham.
Obama has sold out, folks. Public campaign financing? Iraq? NAFTA? Now FISA?
I've been willing to play along until now, although never an Obama or Clinton supporter. FISA did it. I have to vote third party, and if McCain ends up in the White House, I'm sure all of the Obama supporters will point a finger of fault at people like myself. The Democratic Party will be in uproar about candidates like McKinney or Nader taking valued votes from their candidate and allowing the Repugs another term.
Should that happen, the Party and Sen. Obama should look directly into a mirror for fault. 90% of the public disapprove of the work (and I use the term loosely - very loosely) of Congress.
FISA is huge and a candidate worth my vote would have been on the floor of the Senate urging his fellow Senators, both Republican and Democrat to do their jobs and uphold the rights of the people and the sanctity of the Constitution by voting "Absolutely Not" on this bill.
You can rationalize it as much as you want, Mary, but this is far too big to rationalize. The immunity the FISA bill granted is the same immunity you're giving Obama - protection at any cost. The rhetoric of hope and change is just that, and a vote for him is a vote for hope - the hope that he will fulfill the promises of that rhetoric. He isn't doing a very good job of that.
You're right, Mary. It's not a perfect world. Probably never will be. But if we don't force a change, it will never come.
by
Angelo (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 176 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 10:48:55 AM
Duopoly Expands Spy Powers; Grants Telcos ImmunityThursday, June 19, 2008 Our corporate-sponsored Congress further shreds the Bill of Rights by expanding the government's power to spy on us, and grants immunity to the phone companies that have been criminally cooperating with BushCo's illegal domestic spying program over the past several years. In a vote expected shortly, the FISA protections of the past 30 years will be gutted. <SNIP>
The problem is a one-party system acting like it's two; serving the elites while ignoring the People. No vote is the next step... before we start heating the tar and plucking the chickens.
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Rady Ananda (110 articles, 262 quicklinks, 30 diaries, 887 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 5:40:18 PM
Don't pay any attention to anything our politicians say. It is a rigged system. How better to fool the masses than to have a one party system acting as two separate parties. Making the majority of the masses believe they have representation. Each party can work on their side to restrict the rights of the people. Democrats working to restrict gun rights (Washington DC is a good example) or taxing the public for carbon admissions, etc. Republicans can work with corporations like ATT to stifle our liberties and our corporate media to spread propaganda. If anyone pays any attention to what is really going on, it should be obvious it is a one party system.
How come nearly all Republicans and Democrats are not demanding a new investigation into 9/11. 9/11 Commission report is a clear and obvious white wash. Not even a good one at that. No mention of WTC Building 7 collapse, no investigation of the $100,000 wire transfer from Pakistan's ISI to Otta, no mention that Marvin Bush being in charge of security at WTC, Dulles Airport and United Airlines, no mention of Norman Mineta's testimony that Cheney order the stand down of NORAD, not a single testimony of firefighters and police officers that saw and heard massive explosions, etc., etc., etc.,
Our government is like a parasite feeding on its host. We really do need change. Much more drastic than anything offer by Obama. We need a clean slate of politicians that believe in and will defend our Constitution. That is the only way we are going to get our country back.
Don't let them fool you.
Go
by
Goblue (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 29 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 8:29:10 PM
This past week George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley was on with on with Keith Olbermann and stated with regard to FISA, that President Bush committed a felony – not once, but at least 30 times. So why I ask woulda former constitutional law professor and the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama support this warrantless wiretapping and telecom immunity? Such an egregious act and a total disregard for the law. Where's the passion? Where is this overwhelming support for our Constitution? I suppose that'll come with the "change?"
by
Munich (0 articles, 67 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 831 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 12:56:37 PM
J.C. Garrett is right. I read Obama's rationalization for his yea vote and it only adds insult to injury. The implication in his response is that FISA would have expired without this vote. That' a lie. It would have simply gone back to it's original design, which was working fine before the telecoms and Bush broke the law.
Obama has miscalculated on this one. Yes, he's right that the progressive community will still vote for him but the fact that his fund raising has recently taken a dive is evidence that progressives feel no compunction to send their hard earned cash to him anymore. Speaking for myself, after having donated to his campaign, he will now have to make do with just my vote from this point on.
His vote on FISA is equivalent to the loss of hope I experienced during the 2004 election when 59 million of my fellow citizens voted for an imbecile after having 4 years to observe his incompetence.
I'm fast losing hope for this nation. As the late George Carlin noted, this country has been going down for sometime now and there are no encouraging signs on the horizon that the descent is soon to stop.
Maybe we get the politicians we deserve.
by
Josephus (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 3:05:38 PM
At some point you will need to wake up and face the nightmare of the reality you are in that is currently hidden by the cloak of an illusion called hope.
Obama has delivered his message. Forget that change stuff. Now that I am a presumptive nominee and a shoe in to win the general election, I do not need you progressives. What are you going to do he says , vote McCain? LOL.
by
pft (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 466 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 5:35:33 PM
...As Georgetown Law Professor Marty Lederman wrote today (emphasis his):
The new statute permits the NSA to intercept phone calls and e-mails between the U.S. and a foreign location, without making any showing to a court and without judicial oversight, whether or not the communication has anything to do with al Qaeda -- indeed, even if there is no evidence that the communication has anything to do with terrorism, or any threat to national security.
Those claiming that this new FISA law is just some sort of innocuous or mild extension of the Government's surveillance powers under the old FISA law should listen to Jaffer's extremely clear and detailed explanation of what this law really is, how invasive the powers it creates are, and why it tramples on core Constitutional protections. The podcast can be heard here. [Much more at link.]
Being an American who believed in the core political principles of the country always meant adhering to these standards and embracing these values.
Today’s Republican Party, acting contrary to its election rhetoric of conservatism and limited government power, has repudiated, trampled upon, and made a mockery of the core principles defining our country.
Today in the right-wing world, the very ideas that they spent the last several decades loudly touting and that long defined America have become the hallmarks of leftist radicalism. And the media has dutifully ingested this new framework.
Thus, our Beltway establishment first looked the other way, then acted to protect the President of the United States once it was revealed that he was spying on the communications of American citizens in violation of the leftist doctrine called “law.”
As time passes, I'm finding out that most of our "educated" "representatives" and lawmakers are dangerously ill-informed compared to those of us who research documents, most of which are available for free, online.
Shame on them.
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AllDems08 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 89 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 9:14:42 PM
third party-the wasted vote is a vote that continues this sham from the Democrats and Republicans-the Republirats-that vote is not wasted on a third party candidate.
Obama's vote sold out the average American. It was another vote for corporations. Let's see who contributes to his campaign over the next few months. Anyone suspect a wave of telcom money flowing his way?
by
Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 312 comments)
on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 6:36:29 PM
"What I found did help a bit, but I'm still disgusted by the fact that the telecoms who illegally spied on us now have retroactive immunity."
I have wondered why everyone focuses on the telecoms rather than on the federal government for violating laws. Why isn't anyone asking for charges against the government employees responsible for illegal wire taps?
I read that the Bush administration punished Quest for not cooperating. If I remember correctly they are no longer in existance. That action put the telecoms in a no win sitution. They all require government contracts to survive.
Below is a partial email From Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) on March 13th, 2008. Her reasoning seems logical to me. The complete email is at:
"I just don’t think we should punish these companies for their good-faith reliance on government assurances that they were assisting in a legal effort to combat terrorism. If the governmentviolated our surveillance laws by eavesdropping without the necessary warrants, then it is the Administration – not the telecoms – that needs to be held accountable.
That’s why I supported Senator Specter’s (R-PA) amendment, which would have substituted the federal government in place of telecoms as the defendant in lawsuits, allowing existing legal actions to move forward in an appropriate manner. While this measure was rejected, the underlying legislation would still allow citizens to sue the government for past violations and telecoms for future violations of the new law. As your United States Senator, I remain determined to get to the bottom of any government misconduct."
Senator McCaskill, an Obama campaign co-chair, voted no in the last vote.
by
Julie Johnson (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 29 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 10:34:49 PM
Because the telecoms broke an existing law. Glenn Greenwald wrote about it here:
The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters
July 5, 2008
... [Nancy] Soderberg repeats the standard Democratic excuse for immunizing telecoms -- that telecoms are "the wrong target" because "the government should be held responsible, not private industry," and thus, "the companies that followed those directives are not the ones to blame for that abuse of presidential power."
This is all based on the false claim that privacy laws such as FISA were meant to restrict Government conduct, not those of telecoms. The exact opposite is true. FISA and other laws which the telecoms broke -- not just after 9/11, but for many years -- were written specifically to restrain how telecoms cooperate with Government spying requests. As Cindy Cohn, lead counsel for Electronic Frontier Foundation, explained when I interviewed her last October:
We brought the case only against AT&T because AT&T has an independent duty to you, its customers, to protect your privacy. This is a very old duty, and if you know the history of the FISA law, you'll know that it was adopted as a result of some very deep work done by the Church Committee in Congress, that revealed that Western Union and the telegraph companies were making a copy of all telegraphs going into and outside the U.S. and delivering them to the Government.
So this was one of the big outrages uncovered by the Church Committee -- in addition to the rampant surveillance of people like Martin Luther King.
As a result of this, Congress very wisely decided that it wasn't sufficient to simply prevent the Government from listening in on your calls - they had to create an independent duty for the telecom carries not to participate in illegal surveillance.
So they are strictly forbidden from handing over your communications and communications records to the Government without proper legal process.
Contrary to what the Nancy Soderbergs of the world want people to believe, these laws enacted by the American people in order to prevent spying abuses weren't only directed at the Government but specifically at the telecom industry as well. The whole point was to compel telecoms by force of law to refuse illegal Government "orders" to allow spying on their customers. That's why Qwest and others refused to "comply", but the telecoms that were hungry for extremely lucrative government contracts agreed to break the law. They did it because, motivated by profit, they chose to, not because they were compelled.
Breaking the law on purpose and then profiting from the lawbreaking is classic criminal behavior. The conduct which those laws were designed to make illegal -- and which they unambiguously outlawed -- is exactly what the telecoms did here.
NOTE:
Nancy Soderberg was deputy national security advisor and an ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration. Today, she has an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times defending the FISA bill and telecom amnesty. The entire Op-Ed is just a regurgitation of the same trite, vague talking points which the political elite are using to justify this bill, accompanied by the standard invocations of "National Security" which our Foreign Policy elite condescendingly toss around to justify whatever policy they're claiming is necessary to protect us. But it's the language that she uses -- and the brazenness of the lying (and that's what it is) to justify this bill -- that's notable here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But, this should not in any way stop focus on bush's illegal acts.
by
AllDems08 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 89 comments)
on Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 11:10:29 PM
What This FISA Amendments Act Means To You and Me ...
Of our Senators, 19 Democrats and 48 Republicans [0 Republicans voted NO] have broken faith with the Congressional Oath of Office. Every member of Congress solemnly swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. They all swore to do this, and yet 67 out of 100 Senators failed to vote against H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act.
The FISA Amendments Act not only makes the misnamed Protect America Actpermanent, but even expands upon it in its gutting of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
H.R. 6304 sets up a system:
For the federal government to spy on you electronically * Reading your email * Listening to your telephone calls * Watching what web pages you visit * Following your financial transactions
More than that, for the federal government to engage in physical searches * Of your home * Of your office * Of your car
* Without any explanation of why they are doing it
* Without the ability of a judge to even stop it
* Without oversight by Congress
* Letting the government use information it obtains illegally
* Giving telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for helping the government do this, even when it was expressly against the law to do so
When a President of the United States has this kind of power at his disposal, she or he cannot be stopped. The power of the president becomes total and the president becomes a totalitarian. By failing to oppose this bill, our Congress has aided and abetted the advent of American totalitarianism.
[Most of this info comes from Irregular Times - many thanks!]
by
AllDems08 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 89 comments)
on Sunday, July 13, 2008 at 12:05:37 AM
But it is about character, honesty, and transparancy. Obama is showing that he does not have the character to stick by his principles, or his previous statements.
by
John R Moffett (80 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 610 comments)
on Sunday, July 13, 2008 at 5:33:40 AM
