Telecom Amnesty Foes On the Move 363
ya really notes a blog posting up at Wired reporting that foes of the Telecom Amnesty Bill have mounted a campaign on Barack Obama's own website. Though the group was created only days ago, on June 25, it has grown to be the fifth largest among 7,000 such groups, just short of Women for Obama. Although it is widely known that Obama changed his stance from opposing telecom immunity to supporting it, many have not given up hope of getting him to switch once again. Meanwhile, left-leaning bloggers and libertarian activists have joined forces to raise $325,000 in the fight against the legislation. "Their Blue America PAC is already targeting House Democrats who voted for the bill, including placing a full-page ad in the Washington Post [an image appears in the Wired story] slamming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who claimed credit for creating the so-called compromise bill. The coalition plans to follow-up with a Ron Paul-style money bomb, which will be used to target key Senators..."
Barack Obama (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what happens when someone promises intangible things and bases their entire campaign upon promising 'change' and 'hope,' two things which mean whatever you want, and mean different things to different people.
Too bad he couldn't actually give real promises and expectations other than 'hope' this and 'change' that.
Bloody sheep. You all deserve the hell you're creating for us.
Good idea, but can it work? (Score:2, Insightful)
A lot of times, when laws are o the verge of being passed, these groups pop up to try and get them shot down. However, how often have they ever really worked? In a lot of cases, either the politician doesn't listen/care or there isn't enough support to make anyone's head turn.
Not to mention, we look back at the story about having evidence that Representatives that took kickbacks to change their votes and have to wonder if they will listen when they have companies lining their pockets.
There is greed and corruption going on at some of the highest levels of our government, and can a small group of people on an Obama website really change that?
Re:Widely Known (Score:2, Insightful)
Or are you one of the people who think it's all part of a Secret Master Plan (TM)? That Obama works in misterious ways?
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
A saner course of action would be to vote for a small party, or express your disgust by not voting at all. Don't be part of the problem by keeping the duofascists in power.
Re:Barack Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget this "lesser of 2 evils" crap and vote for someone who you like.
The goal isn't to vote for who you think will win, you don't get points for picking the right one.
Yes the guy you voted for probably won't get in but he might get say 5%.
and next election people saw that he got a noticeable percentage and some of the sheep who think voting for someone who isn't going to win is somehow a waste might throw in their votes as well.
Then the next perhaps someone who you'd actually like to see in charge might get 10%, the next election even more.
If you vote for someone you don't really want to see in charge then you're screwing up the system.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks to this man I will never believe again, and I will vote republican across the board, even as a staunch progressive libertarian, until the democrats wake from their sleep.
Well now that sounds like a really mature and intelligent way to deal with it.
If he's going to be nothing more than a sock puppet for crypto-fascist republicans and their propaganda ministers at fox news, we are screwed either way this election. It's best to keep slapping the one party which MAY have some virtue left until it rouses at last and gains some righteous fury!
Re:Widely Known (Score:5, Insightful)
Although it is widely known that Obama changed his stance from opposing telecom immunity to supporting it, many have not given up hope of getting him to switch once again.
Now don't get me wrong, he has taken a weak position and plans to vote for the (bad) bill even if they aren't able to have the provision removed
Before he had said he was absolutely against retroactive telecom immunity. Now he says he will vote for the bill even if it has the immunity in it. It is that simple. He flip-flopped and is exactly what the summary says. Did I miss something?
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:He is repeating inflated security concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Barack Obama (Score:3, Insightful)
This idea might work if so many people did not rely on the nightly news to tell them what the candidates are about. I am resigned to taking the slow route as you describe and spreading the words about candidates that are going to be good for the country or whose beliefs are good for our government and the people. It won't be until MSM is doing the same things that we'll see change in the US political system.
When we can show who got contributions and who changed their votes on immunity for telecomms and how much they got.... damn! just damn! The whole system looks corrupt to even the simplest of people yet here we are having to argue against it.
It's just sick.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:4, Insightful)
How about letting it expire and acting on making it illegal in the next term?
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck forgiveness.
I'm a lot more inclined to put some heads on some pikes as a warning to future generations. That'll work much better than "passing a law" as to "make it illegal in the future"... guess what, it's illegal NOW. Why do you think they're asking for immunity?
The whole problem is that the current administration has run rough-shot over the laws by violating them and then thumbing their noses at us and show us how little teeth the current batch of laws has over them. And your solution is to pass a law? Screw that. I'm all in favor of taking a tier 1 telcom company and burning it to the ground so maybe next time they'll actually protect the citizens rights instead of kowtowing to a schmuck president. After that, THEN pass a law and poeple will actually take notice.
They had a duty to us, the citizens, and they screwed us. Fuck 'em. And unfortunately, they're just a poor substitute for the REAL criminals.
d
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is illegal now. Why not leave it that way?
Are you so naive to think that electoral calculations did not play a part in Obama's stance?
Re:Widely Known (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Barack Obama (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's most sickening is how so many people are SCREAMING to have this bill blocked, yet the politicians are actively voting against the wishes of their constituency. They're not even pretending to care anymore.
Jesse Ventura the only one I still believe in (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the goal to express disgust? Or to make someone lose? Those aren't the goals. The goal is to give the power to those who would use it properly, to select a prsident, and to decide which parties have enough support to be given the recognition and funding to participate in the debate.
Any party that gets 5% of the vote gets federal funding and is likely to be in the debates. Since 50% of the people don't vote at all, that's a lot of potential for the green or libertarian parties to get noticed. Heck, if those 50% just voted completely randomly, it would be a landslide change in politics.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:3, Insightful)
Engrish is my forth language, but I remember an old saying....
Cutting your nose off to spite your face
Jefferson wept (Score:5, Insightful)
the only way to get that bill passed for the future (with a President who's sworn to veto anything w/o the provision and a Republican party with enough votes to prevent that veto from being overridden) is to forgive what happened in the past.
Frankly, with all the rancor on both sides, this country needs a little forgiveness
So the message is: Your masters can get away with anything.
No wonder Cheney can hunt the most dangerous game with impunity, he knows damn well that even if he shoots people in the face, there's nothing the People will do about it. That would mean the "left" would "won"! Can't have that!
Slaves to their "sides", sheeps, argh!
Re:Barack Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Your post illustrates perfectly why nothing will ever change. You understand that the two major parties are hopeless, but this healthy cynicism doesn't translate into any form of action whatsoever (even simply pulling the lever for another party).
You criticize third-parties for being "too idealistic"... but then describe your desired alternative in terms of idealism! So what does "viable" really mean, then? The Libertarian Party over the past 10 years has streamlined its platform to cut out the extreme elements, and has built to the point of this year having former a U.S. congressman and senator debating for its Presidential nomination. They'll have ballot access in 49 if not all 50 states.
If that's not "viable", then I suppose your definition of "viable" is really, "They must be one vote away from winning, so that I can jump on the bandwagon at the last second and take credit for it all along". Even that might be too generous. It's more likely that "viable" means, "They've already won, and now I'm going to focus on criticizing why they suck now."
It's the same mentality as a pirate saying that they would of course pay for all their video games, if only publishers would completely do away with all copy protections. That's a disingenuous argument, because you: (1) know that they won't, and (2) wouldn't really pay for all your games even if they did. You likewise set the bar for supporting a third-party at some level unlikely to be met, and would probably just criticize any third-party just like the big two if they ever did meet it.
What about McCain? (Score:2, Insightful)
That raises an interesting question. Where is the parallel movement to get John McCain to oppose this bill? Why is it a foregone conclusion that people who oppose immunity must be liberal? There have to be like-minded conservatives out there somewhere. Why aren't they putting pressure on Republicans? Are Democrats truly the sole defenders of our liberties?
Re:Barack Obama (Score:1, Insightful)
Unfortunately, those sentiments are completely voided when it comes to his "health care" plans. He will use government surveillance to collect information on every person's paycheck, forcibly take out taxes, forcibly restrict the freedom of choice for individuals' to spend their money how and when they want to, and then force the government to implement rationing in the health care system, as unlimited demand meets limited supply.
Since when is socialism and communism in the health care system "shifting to the middle"?
It's laughable, utterly completely fucking laughable, to listen to leftist "liberals" complaining about *privacy*. These are the people who mandate 24/7/365 registration and government surveillance of everybody's paychecks and commerce decisions. But they are to scared and full of shit to look into the mirror and see the ugly totalitarians they really are. So stop pretending you have a problem with anybody, government included, using electronic surveillance to monitor your life to whatever detail they feel like. You wholeheartedly support exactly such behavior when it comes to peoples' paychecks and commerce acts.
Hell, leftist liberals should be mandated by law to wear GPS monitoring ankle bracelets to understand just exactly how foolish they are (or perhaps GPS dunce hats would be more fitting), and how they have paved the road for further incursions upon privacy, and how every act of socialism is an an incursion upon the private free choices of individuals.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
The immunity offered by this bill is retroactive only; it does not extend into the future. People who say Obama is pro-warrantless-wiretapping don't know WTF they're talking about; he's supporting a bill which will make it illegal in the future, but the only way to get that bill passed for the future (with a President who's sworn to veto anything w/o the provision and a Republican party with enough votes to prevent that veto from being overridden) is to forgive what happened in the past.
Why does congress need to pass any bill with an immunity provision? Wait for the next president, and then pass the law. It is only six months away (Thank God!) Whoever it is, the next president will be an improvement over W. Deal with any other FISA issues that may need to be handled (although IMHO FISA is fine as is, if anything, the standards for getting a wiretap need to be tightened, but I'm not holding out hope for that in the current climate of fear.)
Another important issue is that someone needs to be held accountable for the illegal wiretapping. It is it not the telcos, then it should be the NSA and DOJ. Make the agency directors who pressured the telcos (and possibly the White House officials who ordered them to do so criminally responsible for abuse of power and for creating illegal wiretaps. Then and only then can the telcos be let off the hook.
In other words, someone need to be held accountable.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one of those compromises that should not be made.
What things are we going to allow corporations to do on the presidents assurance that it is legal? Which amendments will we stop at?
It is important that the message is sent that the president can't simple say "this is legal" and congress makes it so retro-actively.
The compromise is at least as bad as the one that made Judge "torture memos" Alito attorney general. There are situations where a compromise is warranted, and the lesser evil, but there are others where the compromise still leans too far towards "strong executive" (That's the PC word for dictatorship I think) and must not be agreed to.
This isn't compromise in the sense that you get the freeway I badly need, I get the bridge to nowhere.
Re:Barack Obama (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:2, Insightful)
But it is immunity nonetheless, and immunity for something that many people not only believe to be illegal, but an outright assault on the rights of the citizenry.
What's worse, in my opinion, is his wishy-washy press release on the matter. If he'd focused more on the "look, if it wasn't this, the republicans and telco-owned democrats would've killed the whole thing and we'd have no progress at all", it wouldn't have been so bad.
Instead, he hid behind the "look! bogeymen!" scare-tactics and provided a waffly excuse of "legitimate threats" this and "terrorists" that without ever actually specifying what these vague apparitions lurking in the dark are. THAT, to me, is where his political colors really showed.
I think this may, very well, be the first thing that has come out to really tarnish his image. I'm not going to stop supporting his bid over it, but I certainly am viewing him with a bit more suspicion than in the past.
Buy the government back? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got to take issue with raising money for senators so they will vote a particular way. Our taxes pay their salaries so they will vote according to the electorate AND the constitution. Since when did obeying the constitution become a la carte? These people took an oath to uphold it. Now it only applies for the highest bidder.
I think a much more cost-effective measure would be to exercise our constitutional freedoms.
I am a huge patriot, even an Eagle scout. In scouts we took oaths and we held them. We were told our leaders were doing the same. We were told to hold the constitution high, and to believe in our government.
I draw the line at a bidding war for votes. If that really is the situation, then we need to clean house. And senate.
Opportunity for Obama (Score:4, Insightful)
McCain has been in favor of it all along, and is kind of stuck. If he votes for it, he keeps in with the Republican party but loses credibility with the conservatives and "tough on crime" folks. If he votes against it, he gets the conservative and "tough on crime" support, but loses some Republicans. No matter what he does, it's approximately a wash.
If Obama votes for it, he loses in pretty much every way. Republican voters still won't support him over McCain. But if he votes against it, he'll get some credibility with the hard anti-crime, rule-of-law folks. He'll pick up some conservatives, possibly (no guarantees, but it could happen) even the few conservatives remaining in the Republican party.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, to get back at him, you're going to "vote republican across the board".
Son, you need to think it through. You've got a good heart but you're head is spinning a little too fast. I say this from love.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
So let the bill be vetoed, why is passing a bad law better than having a better law vetoed. Can someone explain why we need this law anyway. Let's be honest here, the terrorist threat to America is the biggest hype job ever pulled on the American people. I mean we have had 2 major terrorist attempts on American soil (on the same building even) from foreign nationals in what, our entire histoy. Their is enough questionable information regarding 9/11 that I don't think we will ever truely know what happened or who was involved.
But that day was also the day the 4th went from a celebration to a time of mourning.
Re:well no.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Right now, the Democrats have a small majority in the House and a single-vote majority in the Senate. An Obama victory would bring Democratic gains in both houses. In fact, even those who believe McCain will win invariably admit that the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate will grow larger.
Plus, Bush has done so much to tilt the balance of powers in favor of the executive branch, that it would be fairly easy for a President Obama and Democratic Congress to overturn this FISA law.
And, (this is important, so pay attention), this FISA bill only gives civil immunity to the telecoms. They could still be charged with a civil rights violation by an Obama Administration Department of Justice. In fact, everything Obama wrote about Constitutional Law while at the UofC (we were there at the same time) indicates that his view of privacy is very strong, and that he'd be willing to use the DOJ for this purpose (which happens to be the purpose for which it was intended).
IF this FISA bill passes with the immunity intact I will be disappointed, but it's not going to make me suddenly believe that a John McCain administration could be anything but a bigger disaster than Bush. Remember, all the same neocon extremists that have been whispering in George Bush's ear will be shouting in John McCain's ear (the good one). And because of McCain's imagined "tough-guy" image and hot temper, he'll be very vulnerable to the cowboy-culture suggestions that the neocons have used so successfully to manipulate weak leaders like Bush and McCain.
Yes, you are! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not prosecute the government for illegally getting the information in the first place?
Prosecute the government? Who is going to prosecute the executive branch for violating a federal law? The Justice Dept, that's who, except they're part of the executive branch, and have already said they don't think the President broke any law*. So prosecution is right out.
Instead, someone could sue the government for violating their civil liberties, except since nobody knows whether or not the government actually spied on them, nobody has the standing to bring such a case against the government.
Thus the civil suits against the telecoms. The ultimate purpose of these suits, other than to redress their wrongs**, is to cause information on exactly what they did and who they tapped on behalf of the government to be revealed in discovery. Thus those who were spied on can know that this happened, and then have legal standing to sue the government. I don't the legal reason why the telecoms suits don't have the same standing issue, I just know that the suits against the government were blocked by the courts immediately due to standing, while the suits against the telecoms weren't.
So you see, the telecom suits are merely a stepping stone to reaching the real target, which is the federal government. This is also why telecom immunity is not about protecting the telecoms, but protecting the government itself. By preventing lawsuits, they're preventing the discovery that could reveal the government's hand. That's why telecom immunity is so reprehensible.
* Ludicrous on its face, since from the President's only words his program performed warantless wire tapping against parties in the U.S., which is unambiguously against the law. It's another case of the "It's not illegal because the President doesn't have to obey the laws" reasoning, which will never stand up in court, but the goal is not to have it tried in court.
** I can appreciate feeling pressured by the feds, but seriously, if they can't even be bothered to show a trumped up warrant, how can you justify cooperating with an obviously illegal act? Qwest didn't, and what terrible consequences befell them for daring to stand up to the government?
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you sure? Someone else in this thread has already posted a link to McCain's ACLU scorecard, and he's been vocally pro-wiretapping from the beginning.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in complete agreement, my friend. I'm afraid that every few years we're going to have to take one (or more) of these rapacious corporations and slam them up against a wall a few times, just to show them that we (citizens, consumers) are in charge, not them.
In the next ten years, we're going to see the beginnings of warfare between corporate interests and the interests of the people. With the behavior of the RIAA, I'd say that the shooting war has already started.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, with all the rancor on both sides, this country needs a little forgiveness
This may be true. But forgiveness applied to someone who's in denial is called "enabling". It just encourages them to do it some more. The first step to forgiveness is a confession. When the telcoms publicly tell us exactly what they have done that may have violated the law or the privacy of the people whose communications they handle, once they are willing to stand up and accept responsibility for their own actions, then we can discuss forgiveness.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, this guy sounds as crooked as Bob Barr. I suggest he should vote libertarian after all. I, on the other hand, am a libertarian supporter -- but I cannot support Bob Barr.
I will probably write in a name, just to be able to say, "yes, I voted, and no, my vote doesn't count for anything."
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, with all the rancor on both sides, this country needs a little forgiveness if we're going to heal some of the hatred between the Right and Left.
We don't want the Right and Left to get along, because then we'll end up with an even worse "both parties are the same" problem.
The problem right now is that the stuff they disagree over - the stuff that wins elections - is mostly a distraction from the real issues.
The parties hating each other is great - it keeps our broken system somewhat in check. The problem is that the parties aren't really Right/Left. They don't win elections based on philosophy and intelligent debate, but on emotions and reactionary sound clips.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ron Paul is about as close to a libertarian as you can get, and at some times has been.
However, the major media affirmed, about 2 elections ago, that they would never again give the Libertarian party or any of their candidates coverage, even if they won the presidential election. That was in the words of a network representative (I'm thinking NBC), in explanation of why they were not covering the Libertarians, at a time when inexplicably no media was giving Libertarians coverage.
So the Ron Paul comment is right on target. He had the most support of all the candidates, both cash and personal -- and yet was excluded from the debates. He also had votes in New Hampshire which registered zero votes for him, and he had control of the Nevada Caucus, which was shut down rather than allow him to have support going into the Republican convention.
This is called election fraud. It goes hand in hand with the media fraud. In addition, the denial of Ron Paul in the debates made the Fox News Fair'n'Balanced(tm) debates into a primetime multi-hour infomercial. In other words, it was a major illegal campaign donation to all those who were given coverage. Of course, even calling it the debates also violates truth in advertising laws, but this can only go so far.
I should note, that in line with this I fully expect Obama will not win, even if he gets 96% of the votes.
Combine this with the abdication of legislative power to the president, and the abdication of constitutional interpretation to the president, and basically what we are seeing is that though most of the world is moving away from dictatorships, the US is becoming a secret-police, torturing, constitutionless dictatorship.
That said, it isn't worth fighting against. Rather, other countries are moving away from it because such countries destroy themselves. They simultaneously make deadly enemies, and destroy their economy, so that an enemy army can invade and destroy what's left.
So rather than fighting against it, it's more worthwhile to simply flee to a country that is a *land of the free* and *home of the brave*. The US has been there, done that, and don't look like it's even lookin' back. For what it's worth, it is my opinion that the handwriting is on the wall that we're becoming the world's next Iraq. To quote the evangelists, our 400 years of biblical testing are done, and we probably are found way wanting.
Or try to change the two evils? (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll notice that none of the people who are angry at Obama over this scrap are trying to get McCain to change his position. For most of those people, it's because they support Obama. They don't consider their vote for him to be a waste, but they consider this move to be a bad decision. "If you vote for someone you don't really want to see in charge then you're screwing up the system." Well, these people want to see Obama in charge, and so they want him to hear what they think. Except for the real hypocrites here, of course: the McCain supporters, who look for any way to paint Obama as not being true to his message, while McCain has been flip-flopping so much in the past three months that he could almost try out for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team.
So what are they doing now? They're doing kinda what you're supposed to be doing in a Democratic society. Rather than sitting around whining about the evils of the two parties, they mounting a strong campaign to let their selected nominee know that he is not representing their interests with this decision and are trying to get him to see the light. You know, they're participating in government. Rather than just putting in a vote for some libertarian candidate and saying, "Well, my guy didn't win, so you can't blame me," they're actually trying to change the landscape. That's what activists do, y'know - they're active.
To keep spouting this adolescent "lesser of two evils" crap is getting tiresome. In this election, there is A LOT OF FUCKING DIFFERENCE between the two candidates. There is a lot of difference in the way they want to run the war, there is a lot of difference in the way they want to run domestic issues. I apologize that Americans are still a bunch of sheep who can't get John Wayne or Eric Cartman or whoever your perfect candidate is supposed to be elected to the White House, but in this election, a vote for Obama against a vote for McCain is seriously going to mean something, and I'm sorry that the 25%-less-of-a-tool candidate that the DNC is running still isn't enough for your tastes.
Re:Or try to change the two evils? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wish I had a mod point to give you... well said.
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:3, Insightful)
It sets a precedent.
If an entity can do something illegal because it happens to coincide with some would-be dictator's agenda, that's one less thing stopping other entities from breaking laws in order to get favours from future would-be dictators.
Re:Barack Obama (Score:1, Insightful)
We need instant-runoff voting to avoid the whole viability question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting [wikipedia.org]
Re:This guy has a point. (Score:3, Insightful)
You haven't truly understood the implications of a precedent saying that companies can violate the law and Congress will retroactively make it OK.
There is no need to pass a bill saying that it is illegal in the future - it was already illegal. That is why there are lawsuits. And this bill doesn't keep any future Congress from passing a bill retroactively saying next time, "That was OK after all, but it is really not next time."
Now compare to passing no bill. If they pass no bill then the lawsuits go forward and the telecoms suffer in court for it. And the next time that a President asks the telecoms to do something they know they shouldn't, they will say, "Nuh uh, we remember what happened last time." And you know what? There is nothing the President can do to stop this from happening.
It is a simple matter of psychology that any parent of a 6 year old is painfully aware of. No matter how forcibly you say, "That was OK, but next time it is not" the real message delivered is, "That was OK." If you want the message delivered to be, "That was not OK" then you have to make it not OK now. Not next time.
Whether you're dealing with 60 year old CEOs or 6 year old boys, the psychology is the same. If they see that complaints get the rules retroactively changed, they will plan on that retroactive change. If they see that there are consequences for acting badly, they are likely to think twice next time.
There will always be security implications that will be pointed to. There will always be things the President can add to a bill to make it more palatable. CEOs understand this and will plan on it. Which increases the odds of future abuses.
If you want to avoid the future abuses, don't pass a law against it which nobody believes will be enforced. Instead punish existing abuses with the laws that already exist.