I can see that Barack Obama is not going to vote against final passage of the FISA bill. He probably isn’t even going to show up to debate the bill and its amendments. I expect he will work with Harry Reid to make sure his schedule is open to actually show up for the votes, but I don’t expect anything more from him. He has chosen not to make this battle a central part of his campaign. I don’t blame Obama for this bill and I don’t question his desire to focus on other subjects in his campaign. But I’m still disappointed in his lack of leadership on this key issue. His response to our protests was mixed. Parts of it were frankly insulting. Parts of it were very encouraging. But, taken as a whole, his response was inadequate.
Surely Obama knows that the public’s trust in the Executive Branch is broken, and promises to do better (while taken for granted) are not enough to satisfy concerns about 4th amendment violations.
Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I’ve chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention — once I’m sworn in as President — to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.
I think Obama needs to do more than have his Attorney General review the surveillance programs. Here’s something that I would still have problems with, but that I would accept.
After the FISA law passes, as it inevitably will, Obama should call a joint press conference. He should have in attendance the Democratic Congressional leadership (Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, and Durbin), and the chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services, Intelligence, and Judiciary Committees (Skelton and Levin, Reyes and Rockefeller, and Conyers and Leahy). Together they should announce a plan to conduct a joint investigation of electronic surveillance from time that FISA passed in 1978 up until the present. They should announce that the goal of the investigation is to document how the law has worked, any abuses that have taken place, how technological advances have been and can be addressed, and to make recommendations for a new comprehensive Intelligence Surveillance Act. Obama should promise the full cooperation and participation of not just the Attorney General, but the leaders of the Intelligence Community, including the Pentagon. Then they should promise to deliver three copies of the report by September 2009. A classified version will be disseminated to the Gang of Eight [which includes the Republican Minority Leaders (Boehner and McConnell) and Ranking Members of Intelligence (Bond and Hoekstra)], plus anyone with clearance to see it. A slightly classified version will be made to all members of Congress. And a declassified version will be posted for free on the Internet for all Americans to review.
Obama shouldn’t pre-judge the results of this review, nor should he promise any particular course of action. But if he will just acknowledge how deeply the American people need to know the truth about what happened and how badly our trust has been broken, and promise us that he will make reviewing these matters a top priority, I think we can live with this FISA capitulation. If he tries to glide by on glib and misleading talking points and a hollow Attorney General review, he’s going to lose trust and enthusiasm from his base and lose a chance to win over a lot of libertarian-minded people.
Obama is about to violate his oath of office and you think he will do better as president because?
As president he will have unlimited surveillance powers; and you think he will just give them up because?
What is to prevent a future President Obama from accusing his critics of advocating his murder?
Maybe this man isn’t who you think he is.
I don’t know for sure what he’ll do.
But I know that he is fully aware of what happened to Martin Luther King Jr. I can only hope that he will want to make sure that there is oversight. I know one thing. If I were a right-wing activist I would be speaking up now rather than defending Bush. It’s their rights were probably protecting at the moment, as they’d be the most likely targets of domestic surveillance in a Democratic administration.
What makes you so sure? After all, it was AG Bobby Kennedy who signed the order to have MLK Jr. spied on.
I’m not so sure and I’m also not the biggest fan of the Kennedys, John or Robert. I think appointing your brother as AG is about as unethical as it gets.
I do admire the campaign Robert put together in 1968 but I don’t think he was a good or ethical AG and I think his brother’s presidency was more hype than substance. However, John really, really inspired people, and that’s important.
Excellent idea, BooMan. I sure hope the Obama campaign is listening. We certainly do need to know what happened. That’s the point. How far did it go, etc.
On the other hand, I’m sick of investigations that start to find crimes and then run from them. It happened with the investigation of George Polk. It happened with the assassinations of our leaders in the sixties. It happened with the Watergate investigation, the Rockefeller Commission, the Church Committee, the Pike Committee, the Iran-Contra investigation, and so many more.
Why do you think they’d tell the truth, even if they found it, even under classified cover? Why do you think anyone would share that with them without a genuine threat of prosecution?
Bottom line, they won’t.
I know that sounds schizophrenic – what I’m saying is, don’t hold your breath that you’d get the important truths, but take anything you can get.
Well, I don’t expect them to give away the store. I don’t need to know all their capabilities. At a certain point, we have to have some trust that our elected representatives will do the right thing. The Church Committee did an excellent job, even if they stopped short of telling us the whole truth.
It’s not what they didn’t tell us – it’s what they stopped investigation because they truly didn’t want to know.
Yeah, well, some stuff you don’t wanna know because it could mean World War III and the end of civilization.
Once you accept the premise that there are certain things we must not know for our own good, how do you keep the powerful from putting whatever they want in that bag, as they clearly have been doing and by no means only in this administration? I’d say there should be a hard limit on government secrets: absolutely nothing can be secret more than, say, 25 years. That will still be during the lifetime of some involved, so it is not so long that consequences can necessarily be avoided, but it is long enough that the immediate situation that necessitated secrecy will have passed. I don’t feel I have to “trust” the government and do not; as a practical matter, I may have to accept some secrecy, but I will do so with extreme mistrust and claim a strong historical basis for this attitude.
And hey, BooMan and all here. Happy Fourth of July. Celebrate something.
The most unfortunate thing about this is that not only is it unprincipled, but it’s stupid politics. I’d honestly be more okay with such a blatant assault on fundamental rights if it was actually for political gain, but it’s not. It’s going to put a lot of states back into McCain’s column just because Obama flip-flopping and fighting tooth and nail against his base to align himself with George W. Bush is going to alienate a lot of the independents and Republicans he worked so hard to bring over. They’re not going to vote for McCain, but they might just stay home, and in a swing state, that’s just as bad.
I mean, fuck, if you’re going to be an opportunistic unprincipled power-monger, at least have the brains to damn well do it right.
Also: screw sponsoring candidates. At this point, the netroots need to start running some of our own for office. Start getting some bloggers into the halls of power, then we’ll see some fires lit.
Don’t think we aren’t making progress even as we’re about to take a GIANT step backwards.
Take a look at Mark Begich, for example.
I’m being pessimistic today, because we’re seeing the same shit all around the world at basically the same time. The European Parliament’s slipping some passages into an otherwise unexceptional telecommunications bill that would require ISPs to go out of their way to meet the demands of content companies, even going so far as to block legitimate content and uses if there’s a risk of those technologies enabling piracy. Of course, the real use for that power will be to shut down emerging competitors in the digital space.
Canada’s got the super-DMCA, which Harper’s government is trying to cram through with exactly the same legislative shenanigans. (Though they may have made a major strategic error, it’s still outrageous.) Then there’s ACTA… And FISA…
I guess one of the things that pisses me off so much about this is how tone-deaf it is to the sensibilities of the Internet age. I think you and Steven have both written about it, but it seems that the root of the problem here is a drastic miscalculation about how much the up-and-coming generations care about these issues. Obama’s flip-flop – and the actions of the Democratic leadership – are a blatant, unprincipled power grab… But they’re so tone-deaf that they’ve totally messed up and shot themselves in the foot. Even leaving aside the principles, I really expected better political strategy from Obama. If you’re going to sell out, at least make sure you’re getting something worthwhile in return!
As I said in another thread, he’s not pandering to the public here; he’s pandering to the elite. It’s a bid for fair media coverage and not getting offed, not directly a bid for votes. So it does, in fact, make sense.
But it’s pointless. The elite will give him unfair media coverage and do their best to off him no matter what, simply because they know they’ll get a better deal under a Republican administration. He cannot win that fight. Even trying to fight that fight is foolish, particularly when he should know better. He won a hard-fought primary with extremely unfair media coverage against a candidate that was the darling of the elites by focusing on what mattered: votes.
If the rest of his campaign’s going to be run this badly, say hello to President McCain, because whatever magic mojo Obama had when fighting Clinton… He’s lost it.
WELL THEN!
Let’s just pack it all up right now. Damn. We really should have listened to people like Egarwaen and avoided this whole mess… you know, with that negro and all. Hillary would have been the best opponent for that old feeble man McCain. Damn! WHAT were we THINKING?
Get a fucking grip on yourself. We’ve got an election to win. We have four months. Are you THAT determined to lose it? Who’s paying you? Seriously.
We ARE the campaign. If we drop everything over a wedge issue, we deserve what we get… President McCain.
I think a substantial portion of the elite, namely most of Wall Street, could be convinced to support Obama because McCain probably means war with Iran – which would slaughter the market. They aren’t always as rational as the econ texts tend to think, but I think a lot of them can see this, and the tax cuts won’t make up for a market collapse.
Right, but again… Obama’s not making that argument. Instead, he’s pandering to AIPAC and inching rightward on Iran, backing away from his former position of diplomacy first. He’s squandering any advantage he could have gained with the elites with a pro-diplomacy stance.
Even if all this maneuvering is just “moving to the center for the general”, it’s still very clearly bad politics.
The strangely sad thing is that there is nothing lost politically in taking a strong position against Telecom immunity. Who likes the phone companies? The Telecom’s (not their lawyers or representatives) do not care one way or another, since any liability is a cost to be passed on. There are no long term consequences. The Telecom’s as surrogate for the Bush administration, which given what Bush has said in the past is clear by admission, should be further highlighted. Any political campaign that believes that being against Bush in practically any issue (including national security) is not a winner is asleep. Obama would be better off going against FISA with immunity and losing the Senate vote than voting with the marginal majority. He would then be given ample opportunity to highlight the failings of Bush and by extension Republican shortcomings with national security.
Keeping impeachment off the table, but hiding impeachable offenses is not a smart strategy. Democrats are so confused by their guilt over complicity in crimes that they are now helping the cover up. Stick with the impracticality of impeachment and let the substance of abuses come out.
The Republicans ignore Bush for a good reason, but the Democrats should not be fooled into thinking that the target is something other than Republican failure.
I still haven’t snapped out of my despondency. Do you REALLY think he’s going to change FISA when he gets to the White House? Don’t you see that there’s no going back from this? We’re over a barrel now and all is strangely calm considering that we’ve been so thoroughly fucking betrayed by this so-called “Change Candidate.” Give me a fucking break.
And if I may be so blunt, stop with the he might be assassinated crap. That’s a convenient way to excuse his behavior and continue following this charlatan. Wake up and smell the coffee. Tonight he’s officially said Fuck Off to all the millions of people that got him to where he is today, and we all bought it hook line and sinker.
If the margin isn’t close between these two frauds in November, McKinney’s getting my vote. As of tonight Obama’s not getting any more of my paycheck each month.
Thanks for listening and I apologize if I’ve offended anyone.
My only beef with your comment is that you seem to put all the onus on Obama.
Why did the House pass this piece of shit bill in the first place? I’m pissed, but I’m not reserving my anger for just Obama. Not by a long shot.
Yeah. He’s doing the best he can with the political cards he was dealt by the House, who put this thing forward. I’d really like to know why it was so important that they foist something so controversial onto their presidential candidate at this time.
It’s like the child rape ruling out of the supreme court. I doubt VERY MUCH that he agrees with executing child rapists, but if he didn’t make the comments he did, he would be accused by the other side of coddling child rapists. It’s insane how this shit works on the wishy-washy “middle” (the people he NEEDS to court right now,) who decide every election.
BTW- On that child rape issue, the best write-up I’ve ever seen on that is by Barry Crimmins. Highly recommended reading for everyone.
Here is what has ruffled my feathers.
Obama has yet to show leadership. LEADERSHIP!
Change is what he promised. Obama campaigned for 16 months as an agent of change to be a different politician. BUT, as it turned out, there is quite a lot he loves about the way things are:
WOW, all in a matter of three weeks. What’s left?
Looking for a running mate Mr. Obama? End my misery, name cousin Dick Cheney your VP. At least I won’t be surprised. You’ll be a known quantity.
My worst fear about Obama’s position on FISA is that perhaps he and his advisors made the craven calculation that the legislation is likely to be approved by Congress no matter which way he votes, and thus they concluded that it won’t help his Presidential campaign for him to be seen on the losing side of an issue.
If that is the thinking in his camp, it’s despicable and self-defeating on two levels; getting on the wrong side of an issue for political reasons is unprincipled behavior, and it’s also real stupid politics. He has opened the crack of doubt about his integrity, and now his most loyal and hardworking supporters are wondering if they can trust Obama’s words. Their faith has been shaken, and everyone is the loser. I’m stunned that Obama and his team got this one so wrong.
Another thought-
The true test for Obama is whether he will stand by his pledge to support a filibuster against FISA. Of course we don’t know yet if the threatened filibuster will actually come to pass, but if it does Obama is really going to be on the hotseat. His statement on the matter is not vague or ambiguous– he will have to stand with Chris Dodd if telecom immunity is in the final version of the bill, or face the wrath of his base.
What Obama basically said is “you don’t want to vote for me, fine. But remember, it’s me or McCain.” It’s the same blackmail Clinton pulled, though I don’t think Clinton was ever this explicit about it. Since we aren’t going to, and shouldn’t, try to elect McCain over this, he has little to fear from our wrath. Perhaps the first lesson we should draw is the virtue of suspicion.
Second lesson: sitting Presidents don’t automatically get their party’s nomination after their first term. Obama screws with the base too badly and he could find himself re-fighting the 2008 primary… From Clinton’s seat.
Obama sees a Democratic Party victory ahead – a complete sweep – and he needs the Indy votes to make that happy so the more we on the left protest that he has moved to the center, the better he looks.
I never got elaboration from you as to what happened with the campaign getting your info. Did they really get a real world address given only your email? Did they also have your real name? There could be cause of greater concern here, and I know some would prefer not to raise certain questions at this time, but failure to raise questions has served us very poorly thus far.
i know that i am a johnny come lately to this post but i wanted to at least get my 2 cents in. so, here it is. the issue is simple for me. if you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t need to be given immunity for what you have done. it is simple, and that is what this is all about.
if the o man can’t see that then he doesn’t understand the anger. if he can’t see that there are millions out there that understand that the slippery slope is smiling.
what a shame.
You’d bitch whatever he did. So he should tell the blogoshere to find a candidate that can beat him or shut the fuck up.
You should run Kucinich. Yeah, he would win.
What a bunch of aholes. You will kill health care the economy and help bomb Iran because you would rather lose to McCain.
Obama knows what he’s doing. What a President of Blogland then have your little circle jerk and you can all pretend you are something special.
Where is your great candidate. Whoever it was got their ass kicked by Obama.
Because he knows how to win and he ain’t gonna spy on your little holier then thou website.
Get it. He is not enemy.
What a bunch of whining assholes.