Why We Worry

At the center of the flap between Greenwald and Olbermann was Obama’s reversal of his hardline stance on FISA/Telecom immunity.

This is what Obama said back in January:

I strongly oppose retroactive immunity in the FISA bill…

The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.

No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people - not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed…

Back then he supported filibustering telecom immunity. But his courage and resolve has been replaced by fear of the Terrorists:

The bill has changed. So I don’t think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people.

The rule of law was so pre-9/11 I guess. It’s immensely disappointing to have Obama spout the same excuses as Bush & Co. while defending abhorrent policies.

If Obama is hoping this will give him moderate bona fides, he’s sadly mistaken. There is no evidence - outside Beltway chatterers, who masquerade as Joe Sixpack - that the average American longs to gut our privacy laws and grant immunity to criminal corporations. What the reversal does, however, is call into question Obama’s principles. If the rule of law and our basic rights to privacy aren’t worth fighting for, what is?

Andrew Sullivan says that we “now know that Obama can live with mass wire-tapping to gain antiterror intelligence, as long as it is placed under congressional law and oversight in ways Bush tried to avoid.”

But as Glenn Greenwald documents the law Obama is planning to vote for will not place eavesdropping “under congressional law and oversight.” Which is besides the point, since the standing laws already did just that. Bush and the telecoms ignored the law that required them to seek warrants through the FISA system and that’s why they face the lawsuits Congress is now about to dismiss.

Just about the only hope you and I have is that an Obama administration will be a good steward of these vast new powers Congress will soon vest in the executive.

But what if Obama doesn’t win? Shouldn’t Obama vote as if anyone - like John McCain, who Obama says is running for Bush’s third term - will be the next president?

Flickr photo by Mr. Wright

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