Obama: Resist FISA in Senate

This segment from Olberman's show is a nice emotional rant on the issues involved on the FISA legislation that has now passed the house. Its long on heat, but unlike many of his special comments not terribly enlightening. So thats your warmup. For the real meat and potatoes, read Glenn Greenwald's clear eyed explanation of Obama's ridiculous flip flop on FISA. Pelosi and the democrats, cravenly cringing before the telco lobby, had repeatedly tried to cave in the past, but protests from the blogging community and informed public had made them back off. Now, with only months to go in the Bush term, they finally get this legislation headed to the senate and hand the Bush administration exactly what it wants, retroactive immunity and coverup for its warrantless wiretapping activities.

We now have a government that can wiretap any citizen at any time without a warrant and it can't be lawfully challenged. Period. Point blank. And our boy Obama is right now gearing up to be a party to this surrender of our constitutional protections to this government. Dodd and Leahy told the House members not to send this crap to the Senate, but they were ignored by Pelosi. The senate has delayed consideration of the bill until after the July 4th holiday.

I don't want McCain or Obama to have these powers. I don't trust a republican or democratic administration to have these powers. I don't trust the government to have this power, period. They have enough as it stands.

Obama promised to filibuster this abdication of fourth amendment rights if it ever came to the senate. We should make him keep that promise. Obama is going to flip on a lot of things, but this is not one of the things he ought to be allowed to flip on without being given a clear understanding of the downside. He is a pragmatic guy. We need to make him see the downside.

We Republicans Decry Big Government....Except for Warrantless Wiretapping?

Let me get this straight. As republicans and conservatives, part of our principle set is the idea that big government, more government, is not the solution to the pressing social and economic ills we face. We distrust government solutions to problems. We don't like government on poverty, on the economy, for any serious issue and rightly so. But.....we do seem to like untrammeled, unfettered government power for things like warrantless surveillance? We republicans seem to trust government with this kind of power? The issue is two fold. The administration wants two things: they want a near effortless capability to initiate wiretaps without warrant and they want immunity for the private sector who's help is required in order to make that stuff happen, an immunity which allows them to protect their complicit telco partners particularly given that they have likely broken the law in pursuing wiretaps.

Republican leadership and the President are frothing that Congress must pass what they want as though this government power is not subject to abuse, is somehow exempt from the issues that make big government a bad solution for so many others things. It shows clearly that republican leadership is bankrupt and devoid of true conservative principles.