Let’s Be Clear
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There seems to be quite the concerted effort to obscure what the “compromise” FISA legislation does. There is a lot of reassuring language about oversight and safeguards, which ignores the heart of the issue. This is it:
The new FISA bill that Obama supports vests new categories of warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President (.pdf), and allows the Government, for the first time, to tap physically into U.S. telecommunications networks inside our country with no individual warrant requirement. To claim that this new bill creates “an independent monitor [to] watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people” is truly misleading, since the new FISA bill actually does the opposite — it frees the Government from exactly that monitoring in all sorts of broad categories.
What does this mean in practice? From Balkinization, here is part of the answer:
This sort of “vacuum” surveillance could not be approved under the old FISA scheme, which requires either that the calls be wholly international, or that the interception be made overseas, or that the NSA demonstrate evidence in advance that the target is an agent of a foreign power. Under the new law, the NSA can engage in surveillance where none of those three criteria are met.
There is no obvious limit to the communications that could be targeted for surveillance. Warrantless wiretapping is unconstitutional and dangerous to a free society. At the very least, we should understand that the “compromise” bill will give a Congressional rubber-stamp to unconstitutional acts by the federal government on an ongoing basis.
Filed under: politics
A brief reminder to our Obama supporting friends of just how far Obama has travelled so fast:
http://obama.senate.gov/press/071217-statement_from_2/
“Senator Obama unequivocally opposes 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. Senator Obama supports a filibuster of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same. It’s not clear whether he can return for the vote, but under the Senate rules, the side trying to end a filibuster must produce 60 votes to cut off debate. Whether he is present for the vote or not, Senator Obama will not be among those voting to end the filibuster.”
So in response to conradg’s earlier post:
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/07/08/incredible/#comment-12099
Yes, he is hurting the Constitution, and he understood that to be the case 8 months ago when he was locked in a tough primary battle.
This is the thing that’s really striking about this mess. There is no way that the GOP by itself can get enough votes for cloture, and even with Lieberman and maybe a couple “centrist” Democrats they might get to 55, but if the majority leader whipped the vote there would be no way to get enough votes for cloture. The Democrats could kill this thing in the Senate if they wanted, but they are rolling over. This is not bowing before some inevitable doom–this is active collaboration.
Adam01,
Thanks for the links to the responses to my comments. I get lost here sometimes. I’ve posted a reply there.
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/07/08/incredible/#comment-12099
I just checked the other link, and it appears my comment never posted, I don’t know why. It was long, thorough, and apparently lost forever. Well, perhaps the NSA has a copy somewhere. I’ll try to re-respond soon, but it may lack rigor.
It’s a hard time to be a conservative – a bit like being a strict Roman ‘republican’ in the wild slide down to the beginnings of Empire. Obama actually strikes me as sincere, which means either that he’s a much better actor than I am an observer (wouldn’t be the first time) or that he has learned to completely rationalize ‘going along to get along’. Well, fooling ourselves is the first step to fooling others, I guess. On the other hand, there at least appears to be some chance of slowing this seemingly inevitable slide away from a Constitution-based government with Obama (his wife appears to have a spine and may help to prop him up). I’m afraid the closer I look at Mr. McCain, the weaker and more bought-out he shows himself to be. I always figured he was a politician (ie not to be completely trusted), but the truly breathtaking differences in recent years between his talk and his actions (or even between his talk on different days to different audiences) have left me feeling that either he just doesn’t care any more or that he’s not as on top of things as he should be. Either way, I don’t want another Harding in the White House. I’ll take my chances with Obama and hope for the best.
We should be so lucky as to have another Harding. However, that isn’t going to happen.
Well, The GOP “owns” national security and has steered and shaped the default position for over a generation. Now they’ve gone mad as they don’t seem to care one whit about civil liberties anymore. Democrats are political hostages to this and feel they must go along for the ride, because they know that the country will side with the authoritarian in a pinch. In the event of a pinch, anyone who previously stood up for civil liberties will lose, because people would rather overreact than underreact to a crisis–rather be safe than sorry.
Crucially, this view ignores any costs and potential dangers that might arise from one’s own government when liberties are sacrificed. It doesn’t occur to domesticated, patriotic people to fear their own government until oppression is so evident, pervasive and abusive it is far too late to reverse. To most Americans, there is no “trade-off” involved with increasing authoritarianism, because most Americans are not doing and would never do anything “wrong” that would attract an oppressive response from the state, just as the “good Germans” remained relatively unmolested by their government as long as they were obedient and conformed to mandated expectations.
Dems don’t really believe in liberty in principle anyway, so its too much to expect them to risk political power for ideals they don’t genuinely endorse. Why take the chance of completely losing your hold on power if something bad happens (inevitably) for the sake of an abstraction that not enough voters seem to care about?
[...] Okay, so here’s the deal. The Strangebedfellows coalition, which you have undoubtedly heard about if you’ve been reading Glenn Greenwald or AOTP or following the Barr campaign of late, is an extremely admirable left-right alliance centered around issues of civil liberties and the abuse of government power – issues which are, in case you needed reminding, at the very heart of what it means to have a free society with a limited government. But no merely written or spoken protections mean anything unless the citizens of that society take the initiative to stand up to governmental abuses – because heaven knows the state isn’t going to take care of itself. And as the terms of the recent FISA “compromise” make quite clear, politicians who think that they can put themselves forward as defenders of civil liberties without ever facing real political fallout from failing to do so will do just that – i.e., fail – until it becomes clear to them that this can an issue with consequences for them, too. [...]