Like many I was disappointed when I heard that Obama was supporting the House capitulation on FISA, giving telecoms immunity. I was so angry I sent a missive to the Obama campaign vowing that I would no longer support them with money or by volunteering.
Today I heard something that opened my mind.
I was listening to the Randi Rhodes show on Nova M radio. Jonathan Alter was on as a guest and he explained that the bill reinstates the requirement that the Administration go through the FISA court when spying on Americans. Huh? So basically, we've been living without the 4th Amendment for months? Who gave him this power? Congress, when they passed the Protect America Act of 2007. According to Wikipedia:
Domestic wiretapping
The bill allowed the monitoring of all electronic communications of people in the United States without a court's order or oversight, so long as it is not targeted at one particular person "reasonably believed to be" inside the country.
...
Legal experts experienced in national security issues are divided on how broadly the new law could be interpreted or applied. Some believe that due to subtle changes in the definitions of terms such as "electronic surveillance," it could empower the government to conduct warrantless physical searches and even seizures of communications and computer devices and their data which belong to U.S. citizens while they are in the United States, if the government contended that those searches and potential seizures were related to its surveillance of parties outside the United States.
Yes, our Democratically controlled Congress handed the Administration the keys to the henhouse! Talk about capitulation! I remember that one. I cancelled my Democracy Bond because of it. Obama and Clinton both voted against that measure, by the way.
So from what I understand, this new legislation before Congress is an attempt to correct that grave error by forcing the Administration to once again go through the FISA Court when eavesdropping on Americans. But telecom immunity is part of the sweetening of deal to get enough Republicans to swallow it.
And that's the quandary that Sen. Obama finds himself. Giving the telecoms immunity for illegally allowing the Administration to spy on us is a terrible idea, but it may be the only way to quickly reinstate the rule of law, to reawaken the 4th Amendment that has been hibernating for the past 10 months.