Let's dispense with self-deception. Obama could have blocked this bill with ONE phone call to Pelosi, but chose not to. It's not even really about AMNESTY for Telecoms, which is what everybody has been upset about,the real evil of this bill is that it will set the standard for future Presidents. Obama really WANTS the power of limitless spying on Americans and his actions prove it: Why Obama Kinda Likes the FISA Bill (But He Won't Come Out and Say It)
Most Americans don't realize that the FISA compromise comes in two parts. The first part greatly alters FISA by expanding the executive's ability to wiretap and engage in much broader searches of communications than were permissible under the law before. It essentially gives congressional blessing to some but not all of what the executive was doing under President Bush. President Obama will like having Congress authorize these new powers. He'll like it just fine. People aren't paying as much attention to this part of the bill. But they should, because it will define the law of surveillance going forward. It is where your civil liberties will be defined for the next decade.
We can't lie to ourselves about this one, either about what this bill does, or why Obama hasn't blocked it. He's the leader of the party and could have killed this legislation by simply calling Pelosi and letting it be known that he wanted the bill buried until January. If he had done that, the bill would NEVER have left committee, because Pelosi would have prevented it. The leadership is not about to cross Obama at this critical point in the election, and he could immediately sink them anyway by taking a public stand in opposition if they did. That's not an issue. If he didn't block this bill it's because he likes it.
What FISA Does: Part I of this bill codifies a blanket repeal of the entire FISA as it was created after the revelations about FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA and Pentagon spying, infiltrating and disrupting political opponents during the 60's and 70's. After it was revealed that virtually everyone in the country who played any significant role in opposing the Vietnam war or the Nixon administration was spied on and had FBI files on them, Congress passed reforms to prohibit these abuses, including the FISA. This bill basically undoes what little was left of those post-Watergate protections.
Remember that the idea was that communications between Americans and any foreigners would trigger the need for individualized warrants and probable cause, but that strictly foreign communications could be spied on freely without triggering FISA. The Bush Administration simply ignored the law and told the telecoms to ignore it.
What is REALLY at stake is that the government can monitor any communications between Americans, within the U.S. and without a warrant. Now, the degree to which Bush did this is being covered up. But, future administrations can certainly make use of this power and it's hopelessly naive to think they won't.
As JB of Balkination summarizes:
Part II, by contrast, is the part that everyone has gotten up in arms about. It creates effective immunity for telecom companies. It makes perfect sense for Obama to criticize this part of the bill. That's because he doesn't need it as much as he needs the first part, and his base really really dislikes it. True, it might be nice to have retroactive immunity for the players who he will be working with in the future. But remember, he expects to be President, and he figures that his OLC and Justice Department can offer sufficient assurances of legality going forward based on the changes in the first part of the bill.
So, let's sum up: Congress gives the President new powers that Obama can use. Great. (This is change we can believe in). Obama doesn't have to expend any political capital to get these new powers. Also great. Finally, Obama can score points with his base by criticizing the retroactive immunity provisions, which is less important to him going forward than the new powers. Just dandy.
It really doesn't matter whether you believe Obama will abuse his powers or not. The federal government has NOW CODIFIED the inherent RIGHT to spy on anybody with NO effective oversight whatever. This law will be on the books and Americans will be spied on and data mined. Our e-mails will be read on a massive and ongoing basis. And future administrations, possibly Obama himself, will be using this information to suppress dissent. That's exactly the history of the last 40 years.
It is made much worse by advances in technology since the 70's that make the National Security State where government can lay it's hands on any dissenter by monitoring their communications in real time, within reach.
Think I'm paranoid? If you use a cell-phone, the NSA can track your location in real-time to within at most a few hundred meters. All telecommunications firms have now signed on to let the government install data mining programs that cover e-mail and phone calls on a massive basis. The exact extent of this snooping is kept strictly secret because if it ever got out, there would be a firestorm of protest about how virtually everybody has been wiretapped and how useless the resulting "intelligence" has been, how innocent groups have been targeted simply by putting "key words" into a computer program.