The Rude Pundit Nails the Surveillance Issue

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13. Obama shifted before his first election

Last edited Fri Jun 7, 2013, 02:13 PM - Edit history (1)

from July 9, 2008:


In February Obama voted in favor of the an amendment from Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., to repeal retroactive immunity for telecoms, saying, “I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty. There is no reason why telephone companies should be given blanket immunity to cover violations of the rights of the American people – we must reaffirm that no one in this country is above the law. We can give our intelligence and law enforcement community the powers they need to track down and take out terrorists without undermining our commitment to the rule of law, or our basic rights and liberties.”


Free from the political pressures of the Democratic primaries, Obama now says he will vote for the FISA bill even if it doesn’t include retroactive immunity for the telecoms.

And moreover, he will no longer support a filibuster of the bill if it doesn’t include telecom immunity.

“My view on FISA has always been that the issue with phone companies per se is not one that overrides security interests of the American people,” Obama told reporters on June 25. “It is a close call for me but I think the current legislation with exclusivity provision that says that a president — whether George Bush, myself or John McCain — can’t make up rationales for getting around FISA court, can’t suggest that somehow that there is some law that stands above the laws passed by Congress in engaging in warrantless wiretaps.”

Obama also said the FISA compromise was an improvement since it would put an “inspector general in place to investigate what happened previously gives us insight what has happened retrospectively. So, you know, that in my mind met my basic concerns and given that all the information I received is the underlying program itself actually is important and useful to American security as long as it has these constraints on them. I thought it was more important for me to go ahead and support this compromise.”


read: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/07/obamas-fisa-shi/