FISA, Fox and Obama

June 21, 2008 · Posted in Barack Obama, Domestic Policy, Election 2008 

“In our country, I have found that this cooperation happens not because we agree on everything, but because behind all the labels and false divisions and categories that define us; beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.“ – Barack Obama, June 3, 2008

I’m disappointed in Barack Obama’s endorsement of the FISA compromise and I completely disagree with him on it. When I first read his statement over on TPM I was furious.

Over and over again, I’ve said that I believe this compromise erodes a core, fundamental value of this country. Not only because it erodes 4th amendment protections, but also because it will give the telcos the immunity they seek simply by going to court and telling the court that the President told them it was legal to do what they did.

I haven’t changed my mind on that.

What Barack Obama says about his decision is:

  1. It re-establishes at least a basic foundation of accountability;
  2. It restores FISA and existing criminal statutes as the only way to conduct surveillance;
  3. He doesn’t approve of the retroactive immunity but “will work in the Senate to remove [it]; and,
  4. It does not go far enough

On points 1,2 and 4 I agree. Point 3 is purely political; I don’t believe for a second that the retroactive immunity will be removed, particularly when this is attached to the much larger GI and War Funding bill. That disappoints me. It disappoints me that it doesn’t go far enough. It disappoints me that even one iota of our Constitution was the subject of a compromise, particularly by elected officials who swear to uphold and protect the Constitution.

It disappoints me because frankly, I want the head of George Bush on a platter for his flagrant abuse of the United States Constitution. (Figuratively, not literally, just in case there are any .gov visitors reading this). Hell yes, I want to impeach them all and put David Addington and John Yoo in jail for a very long time for what he’s done. I’m angry, affronted and offended that these brazen thieves and robbers have hijacked our government for what will surely be their personal gain.

This is why I am not a politician. I’m an opinionated citizen who has a voice, a blog and a vote. I have neither the patience nor the diplomatic skills to expect gray outcomes in a black and white case. And this is why a snippet of Obama’s speeches echoed in my mind. That snippet is at the beginning of this post.

What I lacked was perspective on just how deep the divide is in our country between those who fear and those who hope. By happenstance, I had a conversation with a couple whose daughter dances with mine and was completely taken by surprise when, with no prompting from me, the husband burst forth with a scathing diatribe about Obama and how much he hated the idea of him becoming President, because those damn liberals were going to allow our country to be attacked again and ruin the economy and appoint three liberal Supreme Court justices all in one four-year term.

This is a nice man. We have known each other for several years and he is a salt-of-the-earth GOOD person. He’s not ugly, but his words were.

Then I realized something else about him. He was deeply afraid. This was a true emotion running through everything he said and believed. Being fearful, he then chose news sources that stoked his fear. At some point I interrupted his diatribe and said “You must watch The O’Reilly Factor for your news. You sound just like him. In fact, you could do a screen test and sit in for him.”

To which he replied, “It’s the only show I watch. Me, my daughter and my wife sit down and watch it every day.”

As the conversation went on, I decided to see how he felt about FISA, because some conservative Republicans I know dislike the idea of eroding Constitutional rights as much as some progressives. His response was flat. “Wiretaps make us safer.” This was said in connection with a strong affirmation that torturing the bastards at Guantanamo was the least we should be doing to them.

Fear. Raw, unadulterated fear, with some O’Reilly style hate on the side. The thing is, he’s in the majority on this, which is why it wouldn’t have made sense for Obama to oppose it.

The FISA and torture issues have been framed to prey upon people’s fears, and it’s worked fabulously. Until these issues can be reframed in a way that exposes and resolves those fears, pushing back isn’t an option if one wants to have a political career that actually succeeds and gets them elected.

It comes down to this: Opposing this ‘compromise’ is too nuanced a position to take in a country where people decide who to vote for based upon whether they’d have a drink with them, or gender, or race, or whatever other superficial excuse is made for their surrender to the dark place where fears grow.

Realizing that, I also understand that my deepest disappointment, anger, and contempt is reserved for the corporate-controlled media, the Rupert Murdochs, Sean Hannitys and Bill O’Reillys who intentionally dumb down the issues of the day into 10-word sound bites and feeds them to the American public like hors d’oeurves next to their apple pie.

Yes, I wish that there were a way for Obama to step up and communicate with us in a way that would be persuasive enough for some to reconsider their position. But this is too hot an issue, too close to home for ones who fear to let go. It’s too big of a step.

Sad, but true. So I’m disappointed that Obama walked carefully down the center, but I understand why he did it, and just like Gotta Laff over at the Political Carnival,

Right now I’m angry. I’ll get over it.

That doesn’t mean I won’t keep holding his feet to the fire. I will. Because the antidote to fear IS hope. I’m the perennial optimist, I suppose, but I do believe that progress will be made back to a place where O’Reilly is irrelevant and people think for themselves, and fear is something they had but got over, just like my anger.

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Comments

  • Repeal FISA is up and running. Anyone who wants to is welcome to sign up and become a Poster on it. The purpose of the blog is to organize a drive to repeal the FISA laws and all laws that pardon or give immunity from prosecution anyone who has violated the Constitution during the Bush Administration.

    That is why we want everyone to be able to Post so they can start a conversation about an idea they have to make this happen.

    Stop on by and check it out. By all means leave a comment and sign up to blog with us as we figure out what needs to be done to return our Fourth Amendment Rights and our rule of law.

    If you have a blog already and you become a poster we will link to your site.


    http://repealfisa.wordpress.co...
  • Excellent post! Fear is very powerful. A lot of people will justify Iraq/Afghanistan by saying "fight them there and not here." What really irritates me is that people don't understand that we have the potential to be a police state one day if we continue to allow the government to keep doing these things.

    I went off about wiretapping a few months ago to my mother-in-law who is a staunch Republican, and an avid O'Reilly fan. Anyway, she said, "I have nothing to hide." So what, I don't either, that is not the point. The constant erosion of our rights is the point.

    The other thing that irritates me about Obama with this whole mess, is not that he is appeasing people, but that he is doing it so soon. I realize he needs to be more moderate to win, but sheesh. I like him partly because he always seemed so un-politician to me. His view on this makes me believe that he is just another politician. And yes, maybe I am naive. I am angry, but I'll probably get over it, too.
  • Oh, I heard the 'nothing to hide' argument last night too. Interestingly, one of the people at this dinner was from Ireland, and she had a better understanding of our Constitution than they did. The nothing to hide argument is such a weak one, especially if people understand how they used these wiretaps.

    Everyone thinks they took individual lines and tapped them, listening to every conversation. What they actually did was funnel EVERYONE's internet, phone, etc, through a separate pipe and then tracked (just like Twitter tracking) for specific terms and phrases.

    Imagine being the poor unfortunate who used a key phrase unwittingly.

    When I explained that to them, they didn't hear it. That's because they trust the folks in government, even as they claim not to trust politicians.
  • mxyzptlk
    Kaorli, I'd be interest to know the Irish person's take (I lived there for a few years). I'm very close to someone who got a writing job in 2003 writing copy for an Islamic education show that was going from town to town in Britain with a show about 1000 years of Islam in the West. This person jut had to write about the history of coffee. That was it. This was shortly before we found out things like communications were being tracked -- and this person was communicating with an Islamic group overseas (about the history of coffee). Shortly after the writing the piece, this person couldn't make long distance calls any longer; very distance call would be constantly disrupted by clicks and breaks. No idea if that was wire tapping and data mining or not, but when the data mining story broke, it seemed pretty coincidental.

    The "I have nothing to hide" argument is sort of toothless on both sides of the debate, because nothing could really be proved -- if you have nothing to hide, how do you know information isn't being collected for other reasons? And if you worried about rights being eroded, the other side would just ask how your life is changed one way or the other. Leave aside the fact that without habeas, someone could be rounded up for something they thought they didn't have to hide and never plead their case in court (some dots I don't think many supporters of the wire tapping in the general public have connected, as Bill Kristol recently proved). But here's another curious aspect about the data mining:

    As you've said elsewhere, Karoli, the modus operandi of this administration is to contract out its features to private interests (think tanks, construction firms, banking and energy interests, communications conglomerates, etc.). There is no guarantee such data mining wouldn't be or isn't being used for market identification and manipulation -- identifying demographics, possible corporate espionage, finding out who watches O'Reilly at night and who watches Olberman and what they say to their friends about it and where those people live. Do O'Reilly watchers buy Tide, or search for porn, and what do their cultural choices tell industry about how to market certain products to them or deny them certain products and information. Target marketing like we've never seen before.
  • I honestly hadn't even gone that far down the road with regard to the data mining. What a chilling thought. I had considered the idea that one misused "key tracking term" could land me in Gitmo with no hope for habeas corpus, however.

    The person from Ireland at the dinner was pretty appalled. She had a better working knowledge of the Constitution than the guy who I was arguing with, and pointed out gently that with regard to habeas corpus, it's simply a question of having a right to ask if there's a reason to be held, and no guarantee of any trial or US court jurisdiction.

    She was also surprised at the depth of his response to Obama -- she said that in Ireland he's pretty well regarded. What I tend to see when having conversations with people that are either well-traveled or from overseas is a much, much broader view. They don't understand the dogmatic, narrow view of our current administration and view it with as much concern as they would any dictator of a foreign country that seems to be a threat to world peace.
  • Excellent post. I appreciate your passion for civil liberties, and your willingness to recognize political reality. I'm also impressed that you were able to listen behind the words of the husband to sense his fear, and that he is essentially brainwashed by FOX propaganda. I'm actually more optimistic on #3 above -- I think Obama has a unique ability to communicate with voters and once he is president, he will be able to reframe issues appropriately. He's a constitutional scholar -- when have we ever had that in the Oval Office?
  • roadkillrefugee,

    I truly hope you're right. That would be great. Or if it could be phrased in a way that opened the door for prosecution of the Bush group after the fact. I'd like to think that the Dems have the chance to really clean house, politically and literally.
  • Found you via coffeesister over on twitter. Your post is so much more mature and measured than mine (http://politicsafter50.blogspo.... And by the time I'd written it, I had written nine scathing emails to Pelosi and Hoyer and Obama. You'd think I would have calmed down by then. :-) I even used the word disappoints, but with much sarcasm. sigh.

    You are right about the fact that this issue has been nuanced and sound bitten to a simplistic fear lie. But I wonder, even though it is too nuanced for the O'Reilly crowd, can't Dems start sound biting in their own favor? It's just product branding, isn't it? This is just a thought I'm pulling out of my butt. Butttt....the very very simple thing about FISA is that the guvmint had the ability to wire tap anyone they liked before FISA. They just needed to get a court order to do it. The lie was made when BushCo lied and said it took too long to get the order, and the bad guys all got away. The truth is that if it's an emergency, they can get a court order in a few hours. So, where's the simple MoveOn ad that 'splains this to the peoples?

    Anyway, glad I found your blog. I added you to my RSS feed.
  • mxyzptlk
    It's even better than that. In an emergency, they could request a court order within a specified time limit after the search, which makes the whole FISA rewiring moot. Unless their real goal was to chip away at yet another check and balance.
  • Omyword,

    Hey, I'm glad you found me too! Thanks for the comment.

    The Dems are biting in their favor, with Obama leading the charge. And then you hear the pushback, right? The comments about "hope without facts, yada yada..." and it feels almost ...hopeless. :) But it's not. What needs to happen first is that they're elected. Just as Bush reframed the mood of this country to fear, Obama has the capability of reframing to one of hope and respect. But first, he has to get elected.

    There is also this possibility. If the telcos produce documents showing that the Bushies told them it was legal, the responsibility for the illegal wiretapping falls back to Bush and his minions. That's where I want it, because corporations aren't the real villains here. Bush, Cheney, Addington, Yoo, and their band of merry men are the real villains.

    It's a long shot, for sure, but I think it's one that might work.

    Pelosi and Hoyer, however? They're on my short shit list.
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