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.
