Tell Obama To Vote Against FISA Bill
Senators Feingold and Dodd have delayed the Senate vote on the bill that would grant immunity to the telecom companies for their role in the warrantless wiretapping.
In December, Obama:
unequivocally oppose[d] giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Senator Dodd’s efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill. Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect.
The situation today is somewhat different, Obama saying:
“Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program,” Obama said in a statement hours after the House approved the legislation 293-129.
Glenn Greenwald and Keith Olbermann are screaming at each other across the interwebs, the latter seeming to suggest that a President Obama would be able to take advantage of the poorly written bill to get the telecoms.
That’s not a good enough answer. Aside from the fact that Obama hasn’t stated this ’secret plan’ as his reason for supporting the bill, Greenwald’s argument that no political leader should be given that much blind faith is compelling. Blind faith is what the Right gave Bush for - well - about seven years.
Granted, I’m no legal scholar, but from everything I’ve read, it’s a bad bill that erodes Fourth Amendment protections. Secret Plan or no, it’s time to restrict the power of the executive. I like Obama a lot, but I still want him to have far less power than Bush has claimed.
Obama’s promise to make sure that he doesn’t abuse his power is not a reason to vote for a bad bill. Bush promised to ‘carefully monitor’ all sorts of things and has paved our lovely little road to hell.
Which brings me to my point. I’m in the position of not only being an Obama presidential supporter, but also an Obama senatorial constituent- as are a goodly number of those to read this blog (thanks Google Analytics).
Senator Obama can be contacted here. Tell him to stick to his (December) guns on the FISA bill and not to get involved in political expediency. Make sure to check the box asking for a reply.
You can also call the Chicago office on (312) 886-3506 or the DC Office on (202) 224-2854.
Two weeks ago, Obama demonstrated that Democrats can and should push back on issues of national security. We don’t need to run to the center on this one either.
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July 11th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Sigh, again government sides with business instead of the people, same as it ever was I suppose. Nader is annoying because he is right, but so was Debs and that was over a century ago..