Obama, Congress Wink at Massive Surveillance Abuses

[depakid]

This week's reauthorization of the Patriot Act comes on the heels of the revelation Obama's Office of Legal Counsel granted fresh retroactive immunity for Bush-era telecommunication lawbreaking.

Here's how it was supposed to be. Under his administration, candidate Barack Obama explained in 2007, America would abandon the "false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide." There would be "no more National Security Letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime" because "that is not who we are, and it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists." Even after his disappointing vote for the execrable FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which expanded government surveillance power while retroactively immunizing telecoms for their role in George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping, civil libertarians held out hope that the erstwhile professor of constitutional law would begin to restore some of the checks on government surveillance power that had been demolished in the panicked aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

The serial betrayal of that hope reached its culmination last week, when a Democratic-controlled Congress quietly voted to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act without implementing a single one of the additional safeguards that had been under consideration -- among them, more stringent limits on the national security letters (NSLs) Obama had once decried. Worse yet, the vote came on the heels of the revelation, in a blistering inspector general's report, that Obama's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) had issued a secret opinion, once again granting retroactive immunity for systematic lawbreaking -- and opening the door for the FBI to ignore even the current feeble limits on its power to vacuum up sensitive telecommunications records.

More: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=obama_congress_wink_at_massive_surveillance_abuses

[corpseratemedia]

1. cutting off more of the progressive base that could re-elect him in '12

[boomerbust]

2. Mr. depakid

Being from "Down Under", just wondering exactly what skin you have in the game of non stop Obama bashing? Good Day!!

[depakid]

3. I didn't write the article- nor approve of the illegalities or the policies

Fact is- a lot of people here don't like Republicans or their policies and don't have a lot of patience with those who enable, legitimize- or support them...

Pretty simple solution to that (one which might end up sparing Democratic majorities come November): start acting like Democrats and upholding and fighting for traditional Democratic values- rather than constantly pandering to the right- and to abusive corporations.