Congress guts that pesky 4th amendment
July 9th, 2008 by COD
By a 69-28 vote, Congress handed Bush a get out of jail free card on illegal wiretapping, as he is now free to work with the telcos to bury all evidence that he violated the rights of untold Americans with illegal wiretaps while granting immunity to the telcos that complied with the administrations illegal surveillance requests in the name of the “war on terror.” Obama voted in favor of immunity. Apparently, change we can believe in equates to more of the same. Both VA Senators also voted in favor of the bill.
RIP 4th Amendment. We hardly knew ya.
I weep for my country.
Tags: Politics
| 12 Comments12 Responses to “Congress guts that pesky 4th amendment”
Obama did vote for the amendment to strip telecom immunity and the one to delay immunity pending the outcome of the Inspector General’s report, both of which failed. I think that Obama’s position is a play for the centrist vote, but I’m still very upset about it. If he would have come out saying that he would vote for the FISA bill only if one of those amendments passed but not otherwise, I think that would have been a position that the Democratic base could support and would have at least given him the ability to claim support of FISA to appease the more conservative voters.
That being said, if this was a play for the center, I think he picked the wrong issue. The more liberal voters take this very seriously, whereas I doubt that the voters in the middle of the spectrum were really in favor of immunity – most are either against immunity or didn’t really care.
There is nothing centrist about defecating on the Fourth Amendment. It is an illegal and extremist move. Both parties are hoping to win the presidency and are betting everything on removing every possible limitation to his power. It is the worst aspect of the Reagan Revolution bearing bitter fruit.
I’ll never be a Democrat, but I had hoped they would stop a rogue presidency. Turns out they like it. Obama included.
“There is nothing centrist about defecating on the Fourth Amendment.”
Well, that’s sort of the point I was making about centrist voters not being in favor of the FISA bill – that Obama is taking on the issue as if it will win him centrist votes, but in reality it won’t.
Voting in this country is becoming something akin to the executioner letting you choose between hanging and lethal injection. What’s the point?
Don, I apologize for misunderstanding you (and getting all worked up about what I thought you meant).
Chris, if there is some place to make political buttons a, “don’t vote, it just encourages them” message is about the only thing I’m interested in.
As I’ve read a few things I’ve become more convinced that he voted for the bill primarily to block McCain from using it as evidence that he is weak on terror. However, there is no connection between the war on terror and wiretapping, it’s a bogus comparison. We needed him to bring that point to the forefront, but I can sort of understand his lack of faith in the sheeple.
Interestingly, McCain skipped the vote, allowing him yet again to claim both sides of the argument if needed.
Maybe I’m just naive in wanting a candidate that would rather lose with his principals intact than sell out to win the oval office.
I can’t believe that McCain could have any possibile chance of using the vote against McCain. Obama would only need to reply that he won’t eviscerate the constitution and hand the executive office unlawful power just because of fear. McCain represents everything bad about Bush in international relations and domestic security on steroids. If Obama would stand up to him he’d win a significant portion of the conservative vote.
At least, that’s how I see things. If he genuinely thought the vote would hurt him, then I guess your scenario makes sense. But I thought the whole reason that Democrates deservedly got swept into power against the Bush administration was precisely because the electorate was sick of the Stupid Party’s war. So what is the point of caving on these issues unless the Dems as a matter of principle, want the exective office to have these unconstitutional powers?
Remember, not only do the anti-war Republican hate McCain, but so do a host to prominent hawk Republicans (and I doubt all of them were blind to the idiocy that was FISA). I don’t see why Obama needs to worry about him and make these kind of pragmatic decisions to get the presidency.
Again, I may be completely mis-reading the demographics so I’m open to an alternative. Right now I just don’t see that the explanation can reall come from dealing with McCain.
ugh 1st sentence: “against Obama”
Mark,
You are vastly over estimating the intelligence of the right wing of the Republican party. These are people that think Obama is a Manchurian candidate placed here by evil Muslims many years ago in preparation of the glorious day when he would become President and enslave us all in the name of Allah.
I live amongst these people. They scare me.
I’ve spent 20 years where Mark and Don are, but now I’m where COD is (amongst the scary people) and so I’m ready to skip over all the saying and doing between now and November, to the part where Obama is president with a supportive Congress and at least the CHANCE for change.
Not voting can *sound* like a good option when you’re frustrated with your choices. That’s the option I took in the 2000 presidential election, and look how that turned out…
Yeah, I know. I was venting. I’ll vote, and almost certainly vote for Obama. Too much can go wrong if McCain sneaks into the Oval Office.