Obama Sucks and So Do You! Wake UP!

I don’t care if the FISA debate is a week old and no longer relevant (you wish), I can’t stop talking about this one. By now you may have heard (unless your news agency is owed by big telecom) that congress has voted to extend the FISA wiretapping “law” and make it legal for telecom to spy on “terrorists” (have a closer look at the term “terrorist” and you will find yourself in there somewhere) without impunity as well as making it impossible for citizens to sue telecom for invasion of privacy as well as retroactively hold the president not accountable for any wrongdoing in previous wairetappings.
Does this sound legit? Did this really happen? Did Obama vote to pass it? You bet. And not only did the “change we can believe in” vote to pass this bill in a 69-28 Senate vote creating legislation that the American Civil Liberties Union describes as "a Constitutional nightmare," Obama voted to silence debate on the FISA bill. Yes, shortly after they voted to pass the bill they also voted to end debate on the issue. HE VOTED TO KILL DEBATE ON THE ISSUE!

What issue is that? Well, much of it is classified. Then how can we properly vote on it? Uh…uh… Now I’m not versed in congressional voting and whatnot but wouldn’t it be easier to vote on a matter if you knew what it was really about?
No, wait, it would actually be harder because you would have to be burdened with the time it takes to read a bill. Yea, what was I thinking?

But one person who does know about the classified sections of the FISA program is big Wis senator Russ Feingold. Check out what he has to say about it.

Feingold: "I sit on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, and I am one of the few members of this body who has been fully briefed on the warrantless wiretapping program. And, based on what I know, I can promise that if more information is declassified about the program in the future, as is likely to happen either due to the inspector general report, the election of a new president or simply the passage of time, members of this body will regret that we passed this legislation. I am also familiar with the collection activities that have been conducted under the Protect America Act and will continue under this bill. I invite any of my colleagues who wish to know more about those activities to come speak to me in a classified setting. Publicly, all I can say is that I have serious concerns about how those activities may have impacted the civil liberties of Americans. If we grant these new powers to the government and the effects become known to the American people, we will realize what a mistake it was, of that I am sure."

Classified information? Congress is voting to extend the FISA program but much of the program information is off limits to them. And not only are they voting to pass the bill but they are voting against further discussion of the bill. Obama voted for silencing debate while McCain did not vote at all and Clinton voted to continue debate.
Unfortunately, while Obama once promised to work with Feingold, he wasn't listening when the Wisconsin senator explained to his colleagues that granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications corporations would effectively block the ability of Congress and the courts to address not just massive corporate wrongdoing but attacks on the privacy rights of Americans (that's you and I).

And if you were listening to NPR this morning in your groggy 6:30am state you would have heard that …”Since Sept. 11, the number of spying warrants approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has more than doubled, according to statistics the Justice Department releases each year.
At the same time, the number of criminal indictments against people associated with Islamist extremist groups has dropped by more than half, according to a recent study by the group Human Rights First.” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91968094

So what does this mean? It means that they’re just gathering information. That’s probably what they will continue to do for a long time. And what are you gonna do about it? Legally you can do nothing. You just lost those freedoms to protest your information being gathered and potentially used against you. Oh, but if you’re not a terrorist then you have nothing to fear. Define terrorist. Do you like recycling? Do you like animals? Do you shop online? Have you ever traveled outside the US? If you answered yes to any of these than you might be defined as a “terrorist”. But you’ll never know until it’s too late.