EFF attorney coming up next on K.O. (warrentless wiretapping )

[chill_wind]

just a quick heads up..

[chill_wind]

1. on now.

[Sparkly]

2. A good interview.

I hope more DUers saw it.

[FrenchieCat]

3. It is too bad that someone from the other side didn't get a chance to offer their view....

and I was dissappointed that the attorney wasn't asked whether it was possible that the purpose for the Government's outrageous claim (which appears to be one that will be denied) was not in fact a ploy to have the Government lose the case.

In otherwords, instead of questions being answered, more questions were raised.

[chill_wind]

6. Frenchie Cat...

I would hate to think they are trying to "lose" on our behalf with appeals that could go all the way up to a Republican Supreme Court. That would be a heck of a game of legal chicken to be playing with our civil liberties.

I just don't think that at all. They are saying the court must be blocked from looking at the case at all-- using the State Secrets "nuclear button" of this kind of litigation (to cop a quote from one of the attorneys who argued Mohamed v Jeppesen DataPlan Inc.) They are trying to blow it up *now*. I firmly believe that.

I look at the entire list of defendants involved and I'm not surprised. Depressed, but not surprised:

(post #322)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5405980#5406372

Congress could give President Obama a small hand here at least by enacting The State Secrets Protection Act that they made a great flurry about within 48 hours or so after Jeppesen DataPlan. They could pretend they too have a job to do. But so far, they haven't.

:-(

[slipslidingaway]

4. Missed it, I was reading the Greenwald piece where he mentioned

the interview.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/08/criticism/index.html

"UPDATE: Even better, Olbermann tonight will have on as a guest Kevin Bankston of EFF, the lead counsel for the plaintiffs suing Bush officials for illegal spying, which means Olbermann intends to cover this issue again tonight. Along with the ACLU and others, EFF has been truly heroic in defending the core constitutional liberties of Americans and serving as a key check on executive abuses. As I noted in Monday's post, this is what Bankston said on Monday after reading the Obama DOJ brief:

President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties. But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a "secret" that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again.

Serious credit to Olbermann for putting on Bankston tonight and thus continuing his coverage of this story, despite knowing that hordes of truly creepy Obama worshipers (see here -- post and comments) who spent the last several years venerating Olbermann (and people like Jonathan Turley) will now suddenly declare that they are untrustworthy, unreliable, hysterical hacks, etc. etc. -- all for saying exactly what they were saying in 2006 and 2007, but this time applying it to Obama rather than Bush...."

[Berry Cool]

5. What I don't get is why Greenwald is so surprised Keith did this.

Greenwald has painted Keith as a swoony unthinking Obama fanboy, but he never was. My impression is that over time, Obama won his trust as a true change agent and the best candidate for president--but now that he IS president, Keith's going to keep on him just like he did on Bush, wanting him to do the right thing, only this time actually harboring hopes of being paid attention and listened to by the man in question. Where Obama falls short of what he promised, KO's gonna hold him to it.

Being upset, nay, angry about this issue is not by necessity throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It's a serious issue, and it matters. Not all of those of us who criticize, like Greenwald or Olbermann, are doing it from a place of never having trusted Obama to begin with, or of being cynics expecting him to disappoint us. On the contrary, while we realize he's not perfect and he's going to disagree with us on some things and he's going to make mistakes, this is something we don't want to see him disagree with us or make a mistake on, because we think it's too important. Doesn't mean we're not still much happier with him in charge than the alternative. But it does mean that he can't continue in the Bush vein in any area without hearing from those who did not elect him because they wanted more of Bush.

[slipslidingaway]

8. Since I stopped watching Olbermann quite awhile ago I cannot

say how much of a supporter he was for Obama, but I do remember that Greenwald was not happy when the FISA bill was being worked on in Congress and Olbermann not challenging President Obama as he did Bush.

:shrug:


Keith Olbermann: Then and now
(updated below - Update II)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/26/olbermann/

On January 31 of this year, Keith Olbermann donned his most serious face and most indignant voice tone to rail against George Bush for supporting telecom immunity and revisions to FISA. In a 10-minute "Special Comment," the MSNBC star condemned Bush for wanting to "retroactively immunize corporate criminals," and said that telecom immnity is "an ex post facto law, which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass email."

Olbermann added that telecom amnesty was a "shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of Fascism -- the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government."


....Strong and righteous words indeed. But that was five whole months ago, when George Bush was urging enactment of a law with retroactive immunity and a lessening of FISA protections. Now that Barack Obama supports a law that does the same thing -- and now that Obama justifies that support by claiming that this bill is necessary to keep us Safe from the Terrorists -- everything has changed.

Last night, Olbermann invited Newsweek's Jonathan Alter onto his show to discuss Obama's support for the FISA and telecom amnesty bill (video of the segment is here). There wasn't a syllable uttered about "immunizing corporate criminals" or "textbook examples of Fascism" or the Third Reich. There wasn't a word of rational criticism of the bill either. Instead, the two media stars jointly hailed Obama's bravery and strength --as evidenced by his "standing up to the left" in order to support this important centrist FISA compromise:

[slipslidingaway]

7. Here's the video...

Obama Pushes To Continue Warrantless Wiretapping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_V8i3A-zaw