The Tom Hayden piece is here, and you can find the Greenwald pieces here or in the FISA post below.
Month: July 2008
FISA VOTE RESULTS AND OBAMA’S BETRAYAL
July 9, 2008:
Today, Obama joined the Democrat-led Congress to immunize criminal telecommunications corporations, terminate all pending lawsuits against them, and grant vast new surveillance powers to the President. By this new law, the President may now spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.
From Glenn Greenwald:
Obama’s vote in favor of cloture, in particular, cemented the complete betrayal of the commitment he made back in October when seeking the Democratic nomination. Back then, Obama’s spokesman — in response to demands for a clear statement of Obama’s views on the spying controversy after he had previously given a vague and noncommittal statement — issued this emphatic vow:
To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.
But the bill today does include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.Nonetheless, Obama voted for cloture on the bill — the exact opposition of supporting a filibuster — and then voted for the bill itself. A more complete abandonment of an unambiguous campaign promise is difficult to imagine.
The ACLU has promised to challenge the constitutionality of this law as soon as Bush signs it.
TOMORROW’S FISA VOTE
July 8, 2008:
In 1978, in the aftermath of Nixon’s warrantless spying program, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in order to put government surveillance programs under judicial review as required by the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.
Since spying without a warrant is unconstitutional, FISA established a special court to grant surveillance warrants. The Bush Administration broke the law by circumventing this court when it asked the telecommunications corporations for access to private communications data.
Tomorrow, the Senate is set to vote on a FISA amendment legalize Bush’s criminal spy program and also grant retroactive immunity to AT&T, Verizon and the other collaborators.
A. The House of Representatives, Money and Votes.
The FISA bill reached the Senate after passing through the House, where Representatives who switched their vote from opposing to supporting retroactive immunity received extra money from telcom political action groups.
B. OBAMA TURNS COAT.
When Senator Obama was running for the Democratic Nomination, he pledged to filibuster any move to grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms. Now that he has the nomination, he has broken his pledge and on June 25th announced that he would vote for the FISA bill even if it includes retroactive immunity.
This shocking capitulation did not go unaswered by his grassroots supporters, who formed a group called Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity, which has become the largest on Obama’s own website.
How will Obama vote tomorrow?
Senators Dodd and Feingold have working to strip retroactive immunity from the FISA legislation. Feingold took the Senate floor today to plead with his colleagues.
How will the Senate vote tomorrow?
In recent days, Glen Greenwald has written eloquently about:
- the lessons to be learned from Obama’s reversal,
- Senator Dodd’s fight against the FISA bill,
- Obama’s strategic and potentially couterproductive “move to the center”,
- Obama camp’s incoherent explanation for Obama’s broken pledge to oppose retroactive immunity,
- and why all of this matters.
You can also listen to Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked to the Pentagon Papers, discuss what is at stake in tomorrow’s vote here.
