First of all, let me come outright and say that I voted for Obama and I made a donation to his campaign. I want to mention this up front because, after people read what I have to say, I don't want anyone to think I am a right-wing nutcase using this forum in spreading negative news about Obama.
I am an registered independent and usually vote based on the candidate - never based on a party politics. And, in the past I have voted for republican and democratic presidents alike based purely on the candidate. And even though I participate in the actual election, I have never participated in a campaign or donated for a candidate - ever. That changed with Obama - I had high hopes and felt that I must do something to make sure he wins and got involved - maybe it was because I wanted the nation to undergo a cleansing period after Bush.
Obama's strategy and tactics as far as the health care debate are concerned was an utter failure. In fact, as far as I can tell, there was no strategy to counter the partisan attack. I am absolutely amazed that this media blitzkrieg was not anticipated. For weeks on end there was no response - and I am not referring to lack of response at the townhalls, but lack of response even in the media and talk-shows. The right-wingers were all over the media spreading the same lies over and over again and there was no counter-point to these lies. The Obama team was utterly and completely unprepared.
That is frustratingly disappointing - in fact, disappointing to the extent that it made me angry. Angry in a sense that we potentially are letting this golden opportunity to get this reform done slip by us because we did not plan this right and did not anticipate this negative campaign and did not have a immediate response for it.
Even though I voted for Obama, now I am having second thoughts - because President Obama turned out to be different than the candidate Obama. When he was a candidate, his message was crisp, clear and we knew what he wanted to do. Now, he basically leaves everything to congress to figure out and stays out. He should have known those highly intelligent and well organized life-forms in congress will completely mess everything up. Where's the real change?
Example: the stimulus plan. What a mess! It has so much spending for the wrong things that it was a disaster. Look at how much money was in the stimulus plan for alternate energy? for high-speed rail? for alternate means of transportation? for scientific research? Pennies on the dollar!! Compared this to money given to other useless things. And alternate energy, alternate modes of transportation and other things I mentioned above were his campaign talking points. In fact, these were some of the things that made me vote for him. And, by letting congress figure this out and messing it all up, he completely lost an opportunity to spend on the things that he said mattered to him - things that would have made a difference!
Example: cash for clunker. Even though there were so many bright sides to this, congress in their infinite wisdom, managed to mess this up too. Instead of making it a simple program, they managed to make it so complicated that it was not clear for most people to understand the rules. And why did it have to take a dealer to fill out a 15-page form to submit for rebate when it takes less than half-page to submit an application for a Visa card?
And, one more thing - why does he have to be the one always selling anything to us? Why can't his cabinet members do this? It was unbelievable to hear the president of the United States telling Americans that if they buy the cars, their warranties will be honored. I mean, come on! I did not vote for him expecting him to sell me cars for gods sake! This kind of thing cheapens the presidents stature. I realize that the economy was in shambles when he took over and saving the auto industry may have been important. But, he should have left such things to his transportation secretary.
In fact, where are his cabinet members? I don't believe I have ever seen any of his cabinet members out there pushing his agenda other than perhaps secretary Clinton whom we see once in a while. Why aren't they on the airwaves every day forwarding his message? Does he even have a cabinet? Other than a few - Clinton, Geithner and Gates, I can't even name anyone else. I hardly anyone else out there. If he has these posts filled, why are they hiding? They should be out on the airways spreading his agenda and countering the right-wingers. After all, unfortunately, nowadays it has come down to who wins the propaganda war, isn't it?
Here's my perception so far - It appears to me that president Obama has become a spectator:
- Instead of making history, he seems to be content just watching history being made. Instead of laying out his plan and setting strict conditions on what he expects congress to do, he is content just watching congress make a mess of his agenda (eg: stimulus plan, health care reform).
- Instead of having a strategy and tactical plan to deal with the media blitzkrieg, he is content just watching others spread lies and negative campaign derailing his agenda.
- Instead of sticking to his campaign promise of making things efficient (real change, remember?), he is content just watching congress complicate the heck out of even simple things (eg: cash-for-clunkers, mortgage relief program).
In other words, instead of working hard making history, he is working hard in being too nice and letting others make history. And we all know what happens then - we may all wake up one day scratching our heads and wonder what happened?
I'm deeply disappointed by the administration's backing off from the public option. The only health now assured by the plan is that of the insurance companies.
How about this, whenever the right-wing parrots complain about govenrment bureaucrats standing between them and their doctors, we reply that there are already nameless, faceless corporate bureaucrats standing there now. The difference is that these corporate bureeaucrats have a financial incentive to restrict or refuse care.
We need to go forward with the public option, if for no other reason than to find out which bureaucrats can do a better job of assuring our health care services.
There will at the least be cost savings, since the public plan won't need to pay hyper-inflated CEO salaries and provide profits and dividends for analysts and trust-funders.
This isn't about taxes, it's about ethics. It's about encouraging or discouraging, deceptions large and small. What makes me increasingly angry is that the Daschel's advocates are rushing to defend what's truly indefensible. Read today's TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/us/politics/01daschle.html?hp and pay close attention to Schmer's comment. “We wish this didn’t happen,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who is on the Finance Committee, “but he’s chosen such quality people that nobody minds taking a bit of an extra step to help get them in.” Senator Schumer has suddenly become very understanding but then he couldn't condemn Daschel without also condemning Rangel's curious management of his real estate or Rahm Emanuel's handsome earning servicing Bruce Wasserstein. Daschel is no Albert Einstein or even an Albert Schweitzer. I'm sure we have someone of equal "quality," but with considerable higher ethical values.
I'm expecting Obama to step in and start inquiring and shut down this revolving pay-to-play door, that open to all Democrats and Republicans who see public service as a means to make their fortune.
Yes, folks, I'm kind of sad.
Went to the Grand Opening of the Pittsburgh Office, and, I must say, I felt a bit let down.
You see, I worked the PA Primary, and had a great time. We were all a bunch of amateurs, flying by the seat of our pants, changing things moment by moment, but we were all committed to Da Man and his message. The party hacks were all on the other side; they weren't running our show, and we didn't have to do things their way.
Tonight, the party hacks were large and in charge. It was evident from the way they gave orders. During the primary campaign, it was What Can You Do? What Do You Want To Do? Okay, Do It! Now, those people who wear neckties or union t-shirts or have the most buttons (not just Obama buttons, but Kerry and Gore and Clinton buttons--I asked one officious personage what she had against Dukakis or Mondale!) tell you Do This, Do That without inquiring into one's gifts or interests. It's as if by winning--nationwide, not alas in Pennsylvania--the crazy, whacky folks who made this movement a success have, in fact, lost control.
Yes, I'll continue working for Da Man, because I want more than anything to see him elected. I'll do what I'm told, even if a party hack, a suit or a union or a multi-buttoned nostalgist tells me to do it. Somehow, though, the fun has gone out of it. For tonight at least.
Peace,
David
I am a bit disappointed at the moment. Just recently i was updated that Obama had changed stances on fossil fuel and offshore drilling. It's not surprising but still not a move i was jumping for joy about....
Passage of the FISA Bill has taken a lot of the wind out of my sails. I just am so disappointed in Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular. This was a chance for him to show some real leadership on a very important issue and he clearly ducked it. Democrats would have rallied behind him if he had taken a stand, but he did not.
There is no way I will vote for John McCain in the fall. Barack Obama will still have my vote. However, I thought for the first time I would actually be voting for someone I believed in and not just the lesser of two evils. I guess I was wrong.
Senator Obama, how could you? I gave you my heart and you handed it back to me in pieces.
Senator Obama,
I am now withholding my vote in the election, as I refuse to support anyone who could support the fascist rubbish you approved of today. Illegal wiretapping should be penalized, not embraced, and if you promise change, why were you afraid to vote for it today?I hate this farce of a country more every day. I'm ashamed to be an american, and I wish I could get citizenship nearly anywhere else on earth.The Constitution has been trampled, environmental law has been trampled, and everything that once made this country decent has been trampled. And not just by the bush administration, but by the people and by their elected representatives and by the greedy, dishonest corporate pigs. Yes, I want change--change in citizenship. Care to help me?Sincerely, very much so,Matthew Downing
Is it just me or do you feel "we've been had!" also?
What happened to the "my ability to bring about real change in Washington..."? It seems every day brings another revelation from Obama that he really will do or say anything that he thinks is calculated to get him elected. He seems to have forgotten that the reason he got to where he is is because he seemed to offer something different than "business as usual."
The best scenario some of us can now hope for is that Obama is really hoping to get elected and then head for the changed direction he promised. I think he is out of touch with reality. He will not get backing later for positions that take spine when he did not show it when it counted, when he could have stood up and been heard.
It is not possible to say how disappointing a candidate he has become. Hope for real change has vaporized for many of us. Now all we hope for is something marginally better than extreme right-wingers. It may not be enough to inspire disappointed voters to get out and vote.
How many of us have been lamenting the spineless Democrats currently in Washington and thought that Obama was something different than that. But it turns out he plays the same games that they do; he is one of them.
What a pity. What a lost opportunity.
We've been had.
Okay, I'm very disappointed about this FISA business. Today's post from Senator Obama doesn't change that. I am very impressed with his willingness to allow these expressions of dissent on his own website. This acceptance of disagreement and the importance of listening to disagreement and engaging it represents the leadership style I want to see in the White House.
This brings up a question of priorities. What's more important: leadership style or the protection of the constitution? I suppose I wouldn't care what style he embodied if I felt that our constitutional rights were being soundly protected. So, if there were no other considerations, I might opt to withdraw my support based on this.
I have decided to post the speech Senator Chris Dodd gave regarding the current FISA debacle that Obama has unfortunately decided to embrace.
Mr. President: I rise—once again—to voice my strong opposition to the misguided FISA legislation before us today. I have strong reservations about the so-called improvements made to Title I. But more than that, this legislation includes provisions which would grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that apparently have violated the privacy and the trust of millions of Americans by participating in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program. If we pass this legislation, the Senate will ratify a domestic spying regime that has already concentrated far too much unaccountable power in the president’s hands and will place the telecommunications companies above the law.
I am here today to implore my colleagues to vote against cloture in the morning.
And let me make clear, at the outset of this debate, that this is not about domestic surveillance itself. We all recognize the importance of domestic surveillance – in an age of unprecedented threats. This is about illegal, unwarranted, unchecked domestic surveillance.
And that difference—the difference between surveillance that is lawful, warranted and that which is not—is everything.
Mr. President, I had hoped I would not have to return to this floor again under these circumstances – hoped that in these negotiations we would have been able to turn aside retroactive immunity on the grounds that it is bad policy and sets a terrible precedent.
As all of my colleagues know, I have long fought against retroactive immunity, because I believe, quite simply, it is an abandonment of the rule of law. I’ve fought this with everything I had in me—and I haven’t waged this fight alone.
In December, I opposed retroactive immunity on the Senate floor. I spent ten hours on this floor then. In January and February, I came to the floor time and time again to discuss the dangers of granting retroactive immunity. Along with my colleague and friend Russ Feingold, who has shown remarkable leadership on this issue, I offered an amendment that would have stripped retroactive immunity from the Senate bill. Unfortunately, our amendment failed and to my extreme disappointment, the Senate adopted the underlying bill.
Since passage of the Senate bill, there has been extensive negotiations on how to move forward. Today, we are being asked to pass the so-called compromise that was reached by some of our colleagues and approved by the House of Representatives.
I am here today to say that I will not and cannot support this legislation. It goes against everything I have stood for – everything this body ought to stand for.
There is no question some improvements have been made over the previous versions of this bill. Title I, which regulates the ability of the government to conduct electronic surveillance, has indeed been improved. Albeit modestly. In fact, it is my hope that a new Congress and a new President will work together to fix the problems with Title I should the Senate adopt this new legislation.
But in no way is this compromise acceptable, Mr. President. This legislation before us purports to give the courts more of a role in determining the legality of the telecommunications companies actions. But in my view the Title II provisions do little more than ensure without a doubt that the telecommunications companies will be granted retroactive immunity.
Allow me to quote the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the matter. It reads:
Beginning soon after September 11, 2001, the Executive branch provided written requests or directives to U.S. electronic communication service providers to obtain their assistance with communications intelligence activities that had been authorized by the President.
… The letters were provided to electronic communication service providers at regular intervals. All of the letters stated that the activities had been authorized by the President. All of the letters also stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Attorney General, except for one letter that covered a period of less than sixty days. That letter, which like all the others stated that the activities had been authorized by the President, stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Counsel to the President.
Under the legislation before us, the district court would simply decide whether or not the telecommunication companies received documentation stating that the President authorized the program and that there had been some sort of determination that it was legal.
But, as the Intelligence Committee has already made clear, we already KNOW that this happened.
We already KNOW that the companies received some form of documentation, with some sort of legal determination.
But that’s not the question. The question is not whether these companies received a “document” from the White House. The question is, “were their actions legal?” It’s rather straightforward—surprisingly uncomplicated.
Either the companies were presented with a warrant, or they weren’t. Either the companies and the President acted outside of the rule of law, or they followed it. Either the underlying program was legal or it wasn’t.
Because of this legislation, none of the questions will be answered, Mr. President. Because of this so-called “compromise,” the judge’s hands will be tied, and the outcome of these cases will be predetermined. Because of this compromise, retroactive immunity will be granted and that, as they say, will be that. Case closed.
No court will rule on the legality of the telecommunications companies activities in participating in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program.
None of our fellow Americans will have their day in court.
What they will have is a government that has sanctioned lawlessness.
Well, I refuse to accept that, Mr. President. I refuse to accept the argument that because this situation is just too delicate, too complicated, that this body is simply going to go ahead and sanction lawlessness.
We are better than that.
And if I have needed any reminder of that fact, simply look to all those who have joined this fight – my colleagues and the many, many Americans who have given me strength for this fight. Strength that comes from the passion and eloquence of citizens who don’t have to be involved, but choose to be nonetheless.
They see what I see in this debate – that by short-circuiting the judicial process we are sending a dangerous signal to future generations. They see us establishing a precedent that Congress can—and will—provide immunity to potential law breakers, if they are “important” enough.
Mr. President, some may be asking – why is retroactive immunity so dangerous?
What is this issue? Why should I care?
Allow me to explain by providing a bit of context. I want to remind my colleagues of what I said about this bill months ago, because the argument against providing retroactive immunity remains unchanged.
Mr. President, unwarranted domestic spying didn’t happen in a panic or short-term emergency, not for a week, or a month, or even a year. If it had, I might not be here today.
But that isn’t the case. What we now know is that spying by this Administration went on, relentlessly, for more than five years.
I might not be here if it had been the first offense of a new administration. Maybe not if it had even been the second or the third.
But that isn’t the case either, Mr. President. Indeed, I am here today because with offense after another after another, I believe it is long past time to say: “enough.”
I am here today because of a pattern—a pattern of abuse against civil liberties and the rule of law. Against the Constitution—of which we are custodians, temporary though that status may be.
And I would add that had these abuses been committed by a president of my own party, I would have opposed them, every bit as vigorously.
I am here today because warrantless wiretapping is merely the latest link in a long chain of abuses.
So, why are we here? Because, Mr. President – it is alleged that giant telecom corporations worked with our government to compile Americans’ private, domestic communications records into a database of enormous scale and scope.
Secretly and without a warrant, those corporations are alleged to have spied on their own customers – American customers.
Here’s only one of the most egregious examples. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Clear, first-hand whistleblower documentary evidence [states]…that for year on end every e-mail, every text message, and every phone call carried over the massive fiber-optic links of sixteen separate companies routed through AT&T’s Internet hub in San Francisco—hundreds of millions of private, domestic communications—have been…copied in their entirety by AT&T and knowingly diverted wholesale by means of multiple “splitters” into a secret room controlled exclusively by the NSA.
The phone calls and internet traffic of millions of Americans, diverted into a secret room controlled by the National Security Agency. That allegation still needs to be proven in a court of law. But it clearly needs to be determined in a court of law and not here in Senate.
I suppose if you only see cables and computers there, the whole thing seems almost harmless. Certainly nothing to get worked up about—a routine security sweep, and a routine piece of legislation blessing it.
If that’s all you imagine happened in the NSA’s secret room, I imagine you’ll vote for immunity.
I imagine you wouldn’t see much harm in voting to allow this practice to continue either.
But if you see a vast dragnet for millions of Americans’ private conversations, conducted by a government agency that acted without a warrant, acted outside of the rule of law—then, I believe, you’ll recognize what’s at stake here. You’ll see that what’s at stake is the sanctity of the law and the sanctity of our privacy. And you’ll probably come to a very different conclusion.
Maybe that sounds overdramatic. Perhaps some will ask, “What does it matter, at the end of the day, if a few corporations aren’t sued? These people sue each other all the time.”
Others may say, “This seems a small issue. Maybe the Administration went too far, but this seems like an isolated case.”
Indeed, Mr. President – as long as this case seems isolated and technical, they win. As long as it’s about another lawsuit buried in our legal system and nothing more, they win. The Administration is counting on the American people to see nothing bigger than that – “Nothing to see here.”
But there is plenty to see here, Mr. President – and it is so much more than a few phonecalls, a few companies, a few lawsuits.
What is at stake is nothing less than equal justice—justice that makes no exceptions. What is at stake is an open debate on security and liberty, and an end to warrantless, groundless spying.
This bill does not say, “Trust the American people; Trust the courts and judges and juries to come to just decisions.” Retroactive immunity sends a message that is crystal clear:
“Trust me.”
And that message comes straight from the mouth of this President. “Trust me.”
What is the basis for that trust? Classified documents, we are told, that prove the case for retroactive immunity beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But we’re not allowed to see them! I’ve served in this body for 27 years, and I’m not allowed to see them! Neither are a majority of my colleagues. We are all left in the dark.
I cannot speak for my colleagues—but I would never take “trust me” for an answer, not even in the best of times. Not even from a President on Mount Rushmore.
I can’t put it better than this:
“Trust me” government is government that asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man; that we trust him to do what’s best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties.
Those words were not spoken by someone who took our nation’s security lightly, Mr. President. They were spoken by Ronald Reagan -- in 1980. They are every bit as true today, even if times of threat and fear blur our concept of transcendent values. Even if those who would exploit those times urge us to save our skins at any cost.
But again, Mr. President:
“Why should I care?”
The rule of law has rarely been in such a fragile state. Rarely has it seemed less compelling. What, after all, does the law give us anyway? It has no parades, no slogans. It lives in books and precedents. And, we are never failed to be reminded, the world is a very dangerous place.
Indeed, that is precisely the advantage seized upon, not just by this Administration but in all times, by those looking to disregard the rule of law. As James Madison, the father of our Constitution, said more than two centuries ago, “It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger…from abroad.”
With the passage of this bill, his words would be one step closer to coming true. So it has never been more essential that we lend our voices to the law, and speak on its behalf.
What is this about, Mr. President?
It’s about answering the fundamental question: do we support the rule of law…or the rule of men? To me, this is our defining question—indeed it may be the defining question that confronts every generation.
This is about far more than a few telecoms – it is about contempt for the law, large and small.
Mr. President, I’ve said that warrantless wiretapping is but the latest link in a long chain of abuses when it comes to the rule of law.
This is about the Justice Department turning our nation’s highest law enforcement offices into patronage plums, and turning the impartial work of indictments and trials into the pernicious machinations of politics.
Contempt for the rule of law.
This is about Alberto Gonzales, the nation’s now-departed Attorney General, coming before Congress to give us testimony that was at best, wrong—and at worst, outright perjury.
Contempt for the rule of law – by the nation’s foremost enforcer of the law.
This is about Congress handing the president the power to designate any individual he wants as an “unlawful enemy combatant,” hold him indefinitely, and take away his right to habeas corpus—the 700-year-old right to challenge your detention.
If you think that the Military Commissions Act struck at the heart of the Constitution, you’d be understating things—it did a pretty good job on the Magna Carta while it was at it.
And if you think that this only threatens a few of us, you should understand that the writ of habeas corpus belongs to all of us—it allows anyone to challenge their detention.
Rolling back habeas rights endangers us all: Without a day in court, how can you prove that you’re entitled to a trial? How can you prove that you are innocent? In fact, without a day in court, how can you let anyone know that you have been detained at all?
Thankfully, the Supreme Court recently rebuked the President’s lawlessness and ruled that detainees do indeed have the right to challenge their detention.
Mr. President, the Military Commissions Act also gave President Bush the power some say he wanted most of all: the power to get information out of suspected terrorists—by virtually any means.
The power to use evidence gained from torture.
I don’t think you can hold the rule of law in any greater contempt than sanctioning torture, Mr. President.
Because of decisions made at the highest levels of our government, America is making itself known to the world for torture, with stories like this one:
A prisoner at Guantanamo—to take one example out of hundreds— was deprived of sleep over fifty five days, a month and three weeks. Some nights, he was doused with water or blasted with air conditioning. And after week after week of this delirious, shivering wakefulness, on the verge of death from hypothermia, doctors strapped him to a chair—doctors, healers who took the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm”—pumped him full of three bags of medical saline, brought him back from death—and sent him back to his interrogators.
To the generation coming of age around the world in this decade, that is America. Not Normandy, not the Marshall Plan, not Nuremberg. But Guantanamo.
Think about it.
We have legal analysts so vaguely defining torture, so willfully blurring the lines during interrogations that we have CIA counterterrorism lawyers saying things like, “if the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.”
We have the CIA destroying tapes containing the evidence of harsh interrogations—about the Administration covering its tracks in a way more suited to a banana republic than to the home of freedom.
We have this Administration actually defending waterboarding, a technique invented by the Spanish Inquisition, perfected by the Khmer Rouge, and in between, banned—originally banned for excessive cruelty—by the Gestapo!
Still, some say, “waterboarding’s not torture.”
Oh really?
Listen to the words of Malcolm Nance, a 26-year expert in intelligence and counter-terrorism, a combat veteran, and former Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School. While training American soldiers to resist interrogation, he writes,
I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people….Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word….
It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result…and the obstinacy of the subject.
Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation…usually the person goes into hysterics on the board….When done right it is controlled death.
Controlled death, Mr. President.
And that is not torture?
Not according to President Bush’s White House. They have said waterboarding is legal, and that, if it chooses, America will waterboard again.
Surely then, Mr. President, our new Attorney General would condemn torture.
Surely, the nation’s highest law enforcement officer in the land, coming after Alberto Gonzales’s chaotic tenure, would never come before Congress and defend the president’s power to openly break the law.
Would he?
He would, Mr. President.
When he came to the Senate before his confirmation, Michael Mukasey was asked a simple question, bluntly and plainly: “Is waterboarding constitutional?”
He replied: “If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.”
One would hope for a little more insight from someone so famously well-versed in national security law. But Mr. Mukasey pressed on with the obstinacy of a witness pleading the fifth: “If it’s torture….If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional.”
And that is the best this noted jurist, this legal scholar, this longtime judge, a supposed expert on national security law had to offer on the defining moral issue of this presidency. Claims of ignorance. Word games.
Now-Attorney General Mukasey was asked the easiest question we have in a democracy: Can the president openly break the law? Can he—as we know he’s done already—order warrantless wiretapping, ignore the will of Congress, and then hide behind nebulous powers he claims to find in the Constitution?
His response: The president has “the authority to defend the country.”
And in one swoop, the Attorney General conceded to the president nearly unlimited power, just as long as he finds a lawyer willing to stuff his actions into the boundless rubric of “defending the country.” Unlimited power to defend the country, to protect us as one man sees fit, even if that means listening to our phone calls without a warrant, even if that means holding some of us indefinitely.
That is, Mr. President, contempt for the rule of law.
And so, this is very much about torture – about “enhanced interrogation methods” and waterboarding.
It is also about extraordinary rendition—outsourced torture of men this administration would prefer we didn’t know exist.
Oh, but we do know, Mr. President.
One was a Syrian immigrant raising his family in Canada as a citizen. He wrote computer code for a company called MathWorks and was planning to start his own tech business. On a trip through New York’s JFK Airport, he was arrested by U.S. federal agents. They shackled him and bundled him onto a private CIA plane, which flew him across the Atlantic Ocean to Syria.
This man spent the next 10 months and 10 days in a Syrian prison. His cell was three feet wide—the size of a grave. Some 300 days passed alone in that cell, with a bowl for his toilet and another bowl for his water, and the door only opened so he could go wash himself once a week—though it may have been more or less, because the cell was dark and he lost track of time.
The door only opened for one other reason: for interrogators who asked him, again and again, about al-Qaeda. Here’s how it was described:
The interrogator said, “Do you know what this is?” I said, “Yes, it’s a cable,” and he told me, “Open your right hand.” I opened my right hand, and he hit me like crazy. It was so painful, and of course I started crying, and then he told me to open my left hand, and I opened it, and he missed, then hit my wrist. And then he asked me questions. If he does not think you are telling the truth, then he hits again.
The jail and the torturers were Syrian, but America sent this man there with full knowledge of what would happen to him—because it was part of the longstanding secret program of “extraordinary rendition.” America was convinced that he was a terrorist and wanted the truth beaten out of him.
No charges were ever filed against him. His adopted nation’s government—Canada, one of our strongest NATO allies—cleared him of all wrongdoing after a year-long official investigation, and awarded him more than $10 million in government compensation for his immense pain and suffering. But not before he was tortured for 10 months in a cell the size of a grave. Did his torture make us safer? Did his suffering improve our security?
I would note Mr. President, that our own government has shamefully refused even to acknowledge that his case exists.
We know about a German citizen as well, living in the city of Ulm with his wife and four children. On a bus trip through Eastern Europe, he was pulled off at a border crossing by armed guards and held for three weeks in a hotel room, where he was beaten regularly. At the end of three weeks, he was drugged and shipped on a cargo plane to Kabul, Afghanistan.
For five months, he was held in the Salt Pit—a secret American prison staffed by Afghan guards. All he had to drink was stagnant water from a filthy bottle. Again and again, masked men interrogated him about al-Qaeda, and finally, he says, they raped him.
He was released in May of 2004. Scientific testing confirmed his story of malnourishment, and the Chancellor of Germany publicly acknowledged that he was wrongly held. What was his crime? Having the same name as a suspected terrorist. Again, our own government has shamefully refused to even acknowledge that his case exists.
And so, we do know, Mr. President. We know because there aren’t enough words in the world to cover the facts.
If you’d like to define torture out of existence, be my guest.
If you’d rather use a Washington euphemism—“tough questioning,” “enhanced interrogation”—feel free. Feel free to talk about “fraternity hazing,” like Rush Limbaugh did, or to use a favorite term of Vice President Cheney’s, “a dunk in the water.” You can call it whatever you’d like.
But when you’re through, the facts will still be waiting for you. Controlled death. Outsourced torture. Secret prisons. Month-long sleep deprivations. The president’s personal power to hold whomever he likes for as long as he’d like. It is as if we woke up in the middle of some Kafka-esque nightmare.
Have I gone wildly off-topic, Mr. President? Have I brought up a dozen unrelated issues?
I wish I had, Mr. President. I wish that none of these stories were true.
But, we are deceiving ourselves when we talk about the U.S. attorneys issue, the habeas issue, the torture issue, the rendition issue, or the secrecy issue as if each were an isolated case! As if each one were an accident! When we speak of them as isolated, we are keeping our politics cripplingly small; and as long as we keep this small, the rule of men is winning.
There is only one issue here. Only one: the law issue.
Does the president serve the law, or does the law serve the president? Each insult to our Constitution comes from the same source; each springs from the same mindset; and if we attack this contempt for the law at any point, we will wound it at all points.
That is why I’m here today: Retroactive immunity is on the table today; but also at issue is the entire ideology that justifies it, the same ideology that defends torture and executive lawlessness. Immunity is a disgrace in itself, but it is far worse in what it represents. It tells us that some believe in the courts only so long as their verdict goes their way. That some only believe in the rule of law, so long as exceptions are made at their desire. It puts secrecy above sunshine and fiat above law.
Did the telecoms break the law? That, I don’t know.
But pass immunity…and we will never know. A handful of favored corporations will remain unchallenged. Their arguments will never be heard in a court of law. The truth behind this unprecedented domestic spying will never see light. And the cases will be closed forever.
“Law” is a word we barely hear from the supporters of immunity. They offer neither a deliberation about America’s difficult choices in the age of terrorism, nor a shared attempt to set for our times the excruciating balance between security and liberty. They merely promise a false debate on a false choice: security or liberty, but never, ever both.
I think differently. I think that America’s founding truth is unambiguous: security and liberty, one and inseparable, and never one without the other--no matter how difficult a situation, no matter what threats we face.
Secure in that truth, I offer a challenge to immunity’s supporters: You want to put a handful of corporations above the law. Could you please explain how your immunity makes any one of us any safer at all?
The truth is that a working balance between security and liberty has already been struck! In fact, it has been settled for decades. For thirty years, FISA has prevented executive lawbreaking and protected Americans, and that balance stands today.
In the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Senate convened the Church Committee, a panel of distinguished members determined to investigate executive abuses of power. And unsurprisingly, they found that when Congress and the courts substitute “trust me” for real oversight, massive lawbreaking can result.
They found evidence of U.S. Army spying on the civilian population, federal dossiers on citizens’ political activities, a CIA and FBI program that had opened hundreds of thousands of Americans’ letters without warning or warrant. In sum, Americans had sustained a severe blow to their Fourth Amendment rights “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
But at the same time, the senators of the Church Committee understood that surveillance needed to go forward to protect the American people. Surveillance itself was not the problem; unchecked, unregulated, unwarranted surveillance was. What surveillance needed, in a word, was legitimacy.
And in America, as the Founders understood, power becomes legitimate when it is shared, when Congress and the courts check that attitude which so often crops up in the executive branch—“if the president does it, it’s not illegal.”
The Church Committee’s final report, “Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans,” put the case powerfully:
The critical question before the Committee was to determine how the fundamental liberties of the people can be maintained in the course of the Government’s effort to protect their security.
The delicate balance between these basic goals of our system of government is often difficult to strike, but it can, and must, be achieved.
We reject the view that the traditional American principles of justice and fair play have no place in our struggle against the enemies of freedom. Moreover, our investigation has established that the targets of intelligence activity have ranged far beyond persons who could properly be characterized as enemies of freedom….
We have seen segments of our Government, in their attitudes and action, adopt tactics unworthy of a democracy, and occasionally reminiscent of the tactics of totalitarian regimes.
We have seen a consistent pattern in which programs initiated with limited goals, such as preventing criminal violence or identifying foreign spies, were expanded to what witnesses characterized as “vacuum cleaners,” sweeping in information about lawful activities of American citizens.
The senators concluded: “Unless new and tighter controls are established by legislation, domestic intelligence activities threaten to undermine our democratic society and fundamentally alter its nature.”
What a strange echo we hear in those words! They could have been written yesterday. Three decades ago, our predecessors in this chamber understood that when domestic spying goes too far, it threatens to kill just what it promises to protect—an America secure in its liberty. That lesson was crystal-clear 30 years ago. Why is it so clouded now?
And before we entertain the argument that “everything has changed” since those words were written, remember: The men who wrote them had witnessed world war and Cold War, had seen Nazi and Soviet spying, and were living every day under the cloud of nuclear holocaust.
I’ll ask this, Mr. President: Who will chair the commission investigating the secrets of warrantless spying, years from today? Will it be a young senator in this body today? Will it be someone not yet elected? What will that senator say when he or she comes to our actions, reads in the records how we let outrage after outrage after outrage slide, with nothing more than a promise to stop the next one? I imagine that senator will ask of us, “Why didn’t they do anything? Why didn’t they fight back? In June 2008, when no one could doubt anymore what the administration was doing—why did they sit on their hands?”
Since the time of the Church Commission, Mr. President, the threats facing us have multiplied and grown in complexity, but the lesson has been immutable:
Warrantless spying threatens to undermine our democratic society, unless legislation brings it under control. In other words, the power to invade privacy must be used sparingly, guarded jealously, and shared equally between the branches of government.
Or the case can be made pragmatically. As my friend Harold Koh, the Dean of Yale Law School, recently argued, “The engagement of all three branches tends to yield not just more thoughtful law, but a more broadly supported public policy.”
Three decades ago, Congress embodied that solution in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
FISA confirmed the president’s power to conduct surveillance of international conversations involving anyone in the United States, provided that the federal FISA court issued a warrant—ensuring that wiretapping was aimed at safeguarding our security, and nothing else.
The president’s own Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, explained the rationale in an interview last summer: The United States “did not want to allow [the intelligence community] to conduct…electronic surveillance of Americans for foreign intelligence unless you had a warrant, so that was required.”
As originally written in 1978, and as amended many times since, FISA has accomplished its mission; it has been a valuable tool for conducting surveillance of terrorists and those who would harm America.
And every time presidents have come to Congress openly to ask for more leeway under FISA, Congress has worked with them; Congress has negotiated; and together, Congress and the president have struck a balance that safeguards America while doing its utmost to protect privacy.
Last summer, Congress made a technical correction to FISA, enabling the president to wiretap, without a warrant, conversations between two foreign targets, even if those conversations are routed through American computers. For other reasons, I felt that this past summer’s legislation went too far, and I opposed it. But the point is that Congress once again proved its willingness to work with the president on FISA.
Isn’t that enough?
Just this past October and November, the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees worked with the president to further refine FISA and ensure that, in a true emergency, the FISA court would do nothing to slow down intelligence gathering.
And as for the FISA court? Between 1978 and 2004, according to the Washington Post, the FISA court approved 18,748 warrants—and rejected five.
The FISA court has sided with the executive ninety nine point nine percent of the time.
Is anything lacking? Have we forgotten something? Isn’t all of this enough to keep us safe?
We all know the answer we received. This complex, fine-tuned machinery, crafted over three decades by three branches of government, four presidents, and 12 Congresses was ignored. It was a system primed to bless nearly any eavesdropping a president could conceive—and spying still happened illegally.
If the shock of that decision has yet to sink in, think of it this way: President Bush ignored not just a federal court, but a secret federal court; not just a secret federal court, but a secret federal court prepared to sign off on his actions ninety nine point nine percent of the time. A more compliant court has never been conceived.
And that still wasn’t good enough.
So I will ask the Senate candidly, and candidly it already knows the answer:
Is this about security—or is it about power?
Why are some fighting so hard for retroactive immunity? The answer, I believe, is that immunity means secrecy, and secrecy means power.
It’s no coincidence that the man who proclaimed “if the president does it, it’s not illegal”—Richard Nixon—was the same man who raised executive secrecy to an art form.
The senators of the Church Committee expressed succinctly the deep flaw in the Nixonian executive: “Abuse thrives on secrecy.” And, in the exhaustive catalogue of their report, they proved it.
In this push for immunity, secrecy is at the center. We find proof in immunity’s original version: a proposal to protect not just the telecoms, but everyone involved in the wiretapping program.
In their original proposal, that is, they wanted to immunize themselves.
Think about that. It speaks to their fear and, perhaps, their guilt: their guilt that they had broken the law, and their fear that in the years to come, they would be found liable or convicted.
They knew better than anyone else what they had done—they must have had good reason to be afraid.
Thankfully, immunity for the executive is not part of the bill before us. But the original proposal tells us something very important: This is, and always has been, a self-preservation bill.
Otherwise, why not have the trial and get it over with? If the proponents of retroactive immunity are right, the corporations would win in a walk.
After all, in the official telling, the telecoms were ordered to help the president spy without a warrant, and they patriotically complied. We’ve even heard on this floor the comparison between the telecom corporations to the men and women laying their lives on the line in Iraq.
But ignore that comparison – which, frankly, I find deeply offensive. Ignore for a moment the fact that in America we obey the laws, not the president’s orders. Ignore that not even the president has the right to scare or bully you into breaking the law, though it seems that tactic has proven surprisingly fruitful.
Ignore that the telecoms were not unanimous; one, Qwest, wanted to see the legal basis for the order, never received it, and so refused to comply.
Ignore that a judge presiding over the case ruled that “AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.”
Ignore all that: If the order the telecoms received was legally binding, they have an easy case to prove. The corporations only need to show a judge the authority and the assurances they were given, and they’ll be in and out of court in five minutes.
If the telecoms are as defensible as the president says, why doesn’t the president let them defend themselves? If the case is so easy to make, why doesn’t he let them make it?
It can’t be that he’s afraid of leaks. Our federal court system has dealt for decades with the most delicate national security matters, building up expertise in protecting classified information behind closed doors—ex parte, in camera. We can expect no less in these cases.
No intelligence sources need be compromised. No state secrets need be exposed. After litigation at both the district court and circuit court level, no state secrets have been exposed.
In fact, Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, a Republican appointee, has already ruled that the issue can go to trial without putting state secrets in jeopardy.
He reasonably pointed out that the existence of the terrorist surveillance program is a hardly secret at all: “The government has [already] disclosed the general contours of the ‘terrorist surveillance program,’ which requires the assistance of a telecommunications provider.”
As the state secrets privilege is invoked to stall these high-profile cases, it’s useful to consider that privilege’s history. In fact, it was tainted at its birth by a president of my own party, Harry Truman. In 1952, he successfully invoked the new privilege to prevent public exposure of a report on a plane crash that killed three Air Force contractors.
When the report was finally declassified—some fifty years later, decades after anyone in the Truman administration was within its reach—it contained no state secrets at all.
Only facts about repeated maintenance failures that would have seriously embarrassed some important people.
And so the state secrets privilege began its career not to protect our nation—but to protect the powerful.
In his opinion, Judge Walker argued that, even when it is reasonably grounded,
the state secrets privilege [still] has its limits. While the court recognizes and respects the executive’s constitutional duty to protect the nation from threats, the court also takes seriously its constitutional duty to adjudicate the disputes that come before it. To defer to a blanket assertion of secrecy here would be to abdicate that duty, particularly because the very subject matter of this litigation has been so publicly aired.
The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security.
And that ought to be the epitaph of this Administration: “sacrificing liberty for no apparent enhancement of security.” Worse than selling our soul—giving it away for free!
It is equally wrong to claim that failing to grant this retroactive immunity will make the telecoms less likely to cooperate with surveillance in the future.
The truth is that, since the 1970s, FISA has compelled telecommunications companies to cooperate with surveillance, when it’s warranted—and what’s more, it immunizes them. It’s done that for more than 25 years.
So cooperation in warranted wiretapping is not at stake today, and despite claims by supporters of immunity-- never has been. Collusion in warrantless illegal wiretapping is. And the warrant makes all the difference, because it is precisely the court’s blessing that brings presidential power under the rule of law.
In sum, we know that giving the telecoms their day in court—giving the American people their day in court—would not jeopardize an ounce of our security.
And it could only expose one secret: the extent to which the rule of law has been trampled.
And that is the choice at stake today: Will the secrets of the last years remain closed in the dark? Or will they be open to the generations to come, to our successors in this chamber, so that they can prepare themselves to defend against future outrages of power and usurpations of law from future presidents, of either party?
Thirty years after the Church Committee, history repeated itself. If those who come after us are to prevent it from repeating again, they need the full truth.
And that is why we must not see these secrets go quietly into the night. I am here because the truth is no one’s private property—it belongs to every one of us, and it demands to be heard.
“State secrets,” “patriotic duty”—those, as weak as they are, are the arguments the telecoms’ advocates use when they’re feeling high-minded! When their thoughts turn baser, they make their arguments as amateur economists.
Here’s how Mike McConnell put it: “If you play out the suits at the value they’re claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So…we have to provide liability protection to these private sector entities.”
To begin with, that’s a clear exaggeration. We are talking about some of the wealthiest, most successful companies in America. Some of them have continued to earn record profits and sign up record numbers of subscribers at the same time as this very public litigation—totally undermining the argument that these lawsuits are doing the telecoms severe “reputational damage.”
Companies of that size couldn’t be completely wiped out by anything but the most exorbitant and unlikely judgment. To assume that the telecoms would lose, and that their judges would then hand down such backbreaking penalties, is already to take several leaps.
Opponents of immunity, including myself, have stated that we would support a reasonable alternative to blanket retroactive immunity.
No one seriously wants to financially cripple our telecommunications industry. The point is to bring checks and balances back to domestic spying. Setting that precedent would hardly require a crippling judgment.
It’s much more troubling, though, that our Director of National Intelligence even bothers to speak to “liability protection for private sector entities.”
This isn’t the Secretary of Commerce we’re talking about, but the head of our nation’s intelligence efforts.
For that matter, how does that even begin to be relevant to letting this case go forward? Since when did we throw entire suits out because the defendant stood to lose too much?
It astounds me that some can speak in the same breath about national security and bottom lines. Approve immunity, and Congress will state clearly: The richer you are, the more successful you are, the more lawless you are entitled to be. A suit against you is a danger to the Republic!
And so, at the rock-bottom of its justifications, the telecoms’ advocates are essentially arguing that immunity can be bought.
The truth is exactly the opposite—and it should be obvious:
The larger the corporation, the greater the potential for abuse.
No one suggests that success should make a company suspect; companies grow large, and essential to our economy, because they are excellent at what they do. But the size and wealth open the realm of possibilities for abuse far beyond the scope of the individual.
After all, if the allegations are true, we are talking about one of the most massive violations of privacy in American history.
Should there not be some retribution or penalty?
If reasonable search and seizure means opening a drug dealer’s apartment, the telecoms’ alleged actions would be the equivalent of strip-searching everyone in the building, ransacking their bedrooms, and prying up all the floorboards.
The scale of these corporations opens unprecedented possibilites for abuse—possibilities far beyond the power of the individual.
What the telecoms have been accused of could not be done by one man or even ten.
It would be inconceivable without the size and resources of a corporate behemoth—the same size that makes Mike McConnell fear the corporations’ day in court. That’s the massive scale we’re talking about—and that massive scale is precisely why no corporation must be above the law.
On that scale, it is impossible to plead ignorance. As Judge Walker ruled, “AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.”
But the arguments of the president’s allies sink even lower. Listen to the words a House Republican leader spoke on Fox News. They are shameful: “I believe that they deserve immunity from lawsuits out there from typical trial lawyers trying to find a way to get into the pockets of American companies.”
Of course, some of the “typical greedy trial lawyers” bringing these suits actually work for a nonprofit. And the telecoms that some want to portray as pitiable little Davids actually employ hundreds of attorneys, retain the best corporate law firms, and spend multimillion-dollar legal budgets every year. But if the facts actually mattered to immunity supporters, we wouldn’t be here. For some, the pre-written narrative takes precedence far above the mere facts; and here, it is the perennial narrative of the greedy trial lawyers.
With that, some can rest content. They can conclude that we weren’t ever serious about law, or about privacy, or about checks and balances—it was about money all along.
There can no longer be any doubt: One by one, the arguments of the immunity supporters, of the telecoms’ advocates, fail. I’d like to spend a few moments reviewing, in detail, those claims and their failures.
[Slide 1]
One: Immunity supporters argue that granting immunity is a presidential prerogative.
But the fact is that this case belongs in the courts, in cases where the outcome has not been predetermined. The judiciary should be allowed to determine whether the president has exceeded his powers by obtaining from the telecoms wholesale access to the domestic communications of millions of ordinary Americans.
The courts should not simply be in the business of certifying that the companies received some form of documentation. Rather they should be allowed to evaluate the validity of the legal arguments asserted in the document. Was the request legal or not?
Remember also that the administration’s original immunity proposal protected everyone involved in the wiretapping program—not just the telecoms. In their original proposal, that is, they wanted to immunize themselves.
Thankfully, executive immunity is not part of the bill before us. But the origin of immunity tells us a great deal about what’s at stake here: self-preservation.
[Slide 2]
Two: Immunity supporters claim that only foreign communications were targeted—not Americans’ domestic calls.
But the fact is that clear, first-hand evidence, authenticated by the corporations in court, contradicts that claim. “Splitters” at AT&T’s Internet hub in San Francisco diverted into a secret room controlled by the NSA every e-mail, text message, and phone call—foreign or domestic—carried over the massive fiber-optic links of sixteen separate companies.
[Slide 3]
Three: Immunity supporters claim that a lack of immunity will make the telecoms less likely to cooperate with surveillance in the future.
But remember: Since the 1970s, FISA has compelled telecoms to cooperate with warranted surveillance, and it has immunized them. The issue today is not wiretapping—it is warrantless wiretapping. And the warrant is essential, because that is what brings the president’s power under the rule of law.
[Slide 4]
Four: Immunity supporters argue that the telecoms can’t defend themselves without exposing state secrets.
But the fact is that Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker has already ruled that the issue can go to trial without putting state secrets in jeopardy. He pointed out that the existence of the warrantless surveillance program is a hardly secret at all: “The government has [already] disclosed the general contours of the ‘terrorist surveillance program,’ which requires the assistance of a telecommunications provider.”
[Slide 5]
Five: Immunity supporters claim that the telecoms are already protected by common law principles.
But the fact is that common law immunities do not t
I'm very disappointed by this response from Barack Obama to the most recent so-called "compromise" on FISA legislation:
"Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders. "That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past. "After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act. "Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance – making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act. "It is not all that I would want. But 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, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives – and the liberty – of the American people."
"Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.
"That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.
"After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act.
"Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance – making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future. It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.
"It is not all that I would want. But 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, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives – and the liberty – of the American people."
This is terrible policy and ugly politics.
I hope and expect Obama to positively wipe the floor with John McCain this November, but he's going to have to do it without more money from me, I'm afraid. The Democrats in Congress have been so disappointing on this and other issues where standing up to George Bush and his Administration's policies are so very very crucial.
I don't know about others, but I'm becoming most disenchanted with Senator Obama, whose ideas I thought were super.
1. He's making megabucks (relative to many of us taxpayers) as a Senator, yet he's off campaigning. If I ignored my job for weeks, I'd be fired. And this makes me wonder how "different" he is.
2. While he began as a wonderful alternative to Hillary Clinton (note: if she ends up as the democratic candidate, I'll write in Mickey Mouse), he has now lowered himself to her level. He also seems to be getting more and more money from big business, etc.... putting himself in their debt and negating many of his earlier ideals.
3. I live in southern Arizona, a "liberal" island in a backward state (with senators like Kyl and McCain...). Our democratic governor, Janet Napolitano, made what I consider a great spot for Obama. The current Obama tagline is a black-and-white photo where he doesn't even look at the camera. His voice is less than convincing. What a shame. So Gov. Napolitano isn't Ted Kennedy. She still has a certain amount of influence locally. Earlier there was a tagline with Obama talking to the camera, saying he approved. The difference makes me think he doesn't really want our governor's endorsement.
I'm disappointed. Obama set himself up on a pedestal...and now he's kicked the pedestal out from under himself. I still hope he prevails over Hillary, but I'm disappointed. His ideals and methods of campaigning have -- in reality -- pretty much fallen to the level of Clinton's.
DT
Like the fact when Senator Clinton was elected by NY, I wrote her and asked for a conversation since I was a blue dot in a red state at the time. I got back a form letter saying I could not have this conversation. Later I wrote a congressman out of my district that contacted me and I guess Senator Clinton asked him to at least read what I had to say. I’m use to writing Politicians.
I use to be on the Citizens informal council for Congressman Tom Downey when I lived on Long Island, NY. This was a small band of constituents that share opinions with the congressman since he was the only Democrat in a Republican stronghold. So we would express ideas with him and him with us before launching them on the general public. So after my new representatives [Isakson & Chamblee] said they did not want me writing them anymore, I wrote Senator Clinton. Yes, I was disappointed but I waited to see how she would handle the Senate. Would she challenge the system? We all wished for something new, would she be that bright light. I was disappointed again. Senator Clinton demonstrated Status quo. Not a problem. No harm, No foul. However, I’m disappointed. Now I see Senator Clinton has an Open website, “Thank you for taking the time to share your comments and concerns!” it says. She’ll listen to everyone’s opinions now.
She says we want to run an upbeat campaign, meaning no name calling or smearing other Democrats. Then why attack Obama Supporters for their opinions? I am truly disappointed she took that route. David Geffen was a friend of hers as well as Obama. He is a Citizen not a representative for Obama. Why did she do it? Some People think Senator Clinton was “showing her own determination to strike back quickly against any accusations. Maybe. I hope she keeps her promise to keep this campaign upbeat for all our sakes. Obama’s response was pure gold. I loved it! He was right. Why should he give money back? Did the Clintons when Geffen was more in their corner than now? WE are Citizen with the right of free speech without having our words twisted to mean something other than what was meant. Not that I believe the Republican Administration knows that but I thought Senator Clinton did. According to the Associated Press, Obama made it clear he wanted to end the "tit-for-tat" that dominates politics. Also, Obama said, "We've got work to do." He’s right!
I’m already becoming disappointed in the Democrats in keeping their promises. I never believe all of what they said but I was hoping some things could get accomplished. Biden’s bill is promising to rescind the President’s war powers because the issues related to the grant has been resolved; but working with big business to write the immigration bill is not, and not funding the fence is not. I don’t understand how we can remain a nation of laws when we have a group of people in our country that do not respect our laws. When you break one law, more often then not you will break more laws to get what you want. A lot of crimes against the US citizens are being committed by the illegal population from Mexico. [I won’t list them all here but its gross disrespect.] Why can’t they go thru the normal processes? The agency that handles the applications have been given orders to step up the process of allowing Mexicans into this country. So why be illegal? The Democrats are all gonzo for the Mexicans when the reverse response was given to the Haitian population when they started entering the country illegally. Why? I don’t get how that’s fair treatment. I’m not alone on this issue. They left themselves wide open for Cheney’s remarks made while on tour about the Democrat Party as a whole.
The only bright spot was Obama’s response to Cheney’s remarks against Britain’s troop withdrawal. Obama ridiculed the Vice President. “Obama, speaking at a massive outdoor rally in Austin, Texas, said” Britain’s “decision this week to withdraw 1,600 troops is recognition that Iraq's problems can't be solved militarily.” Obama said what most of us feel if Britain can understand that why can’t this Bush Administration.
Disappointment! I guess no one is reading this Blog. I misstated a historical fact about John Hanson being from Africa. I meant African descendant. No one responded to even dispute the statement. Being an America History person {In my part of world during my day, I was the only person to graduate from high school with five semesters of History and Four semesters of History in College, I pride myself as a History buff.}, I usually try not to misstate the facts that are often misstated on purpose by others. Granted no one responded but I’ll continue to state the facts. For instance, John Hanson is not the only early American politician with African descendants. A book once banned years ago titled “The Six Black Presidents” details how far back this subject has been debated. It can be found on Amazon.com now. Dr. Auset BaKufu used what she had at the time to write the book “Therefore, because of this” reasoning, [“Post Hoc Ergo Promptor Hoc"] has made the non-visionary uncomfortable with this discussion naturally. They argue with her theories. They forget, they are her theories and the period in which she wrote them was hostile to say the least. She does not even include President Hanson within her writings. So I offer what she wrote has possibilities that will knock the socks off other theories that can’t explain different. I offer as another reader of the book states “her understanding of the society at large is deep,” maybe deeper than other historians of her day do. As another Reader of her book said, “She claims nothing.” However, she offers ideas that will be debated down the centuries about presidential “passing” {that is what we use to call it.}. Dr. Auset BaKufu wrote the book to “expand the frontiers of knowing and the boundaries of truth.” A visionary! This is not the first time this subject has reached our senses. How about the Daughter no one knew about of a man who was considered a known racist in our Political landscape and recent history of who is related to some of our most prominent forefathers. So I guess no one is reading this blog. It is disappointing to me but beside the point why I started it.
To seek out how history can be made with a qualified presidential candidate as Senator Obama. Learn about new elements such as writing a blog, being committed to fundraising, organizing a group, networking with others to promote a vision much bigger than ourselves, learn how we can take our country back for the people, and even learn how to set up a YouTube site featuring Obama’s best clips. I am hoping the outcome will be an improved American History and greater chances at a better future for everyone. Why? Because “I have a dream, that one day…” [For all you grammar majors…I know it’s a fragment. :-)]
