It would be so easy for Obama to vote the way you want. Why won't he?

[babylonsister]

He has heard from us, seen the ads, read the petitions, who is he trying to impress and what is he trying to accomplish? Let me know please, or at least your take on his stance.

[skooooo]

1. Won't know for sure until he votes....

I just wish this was over cause it's made everything kind of tense around here.

[Mz Pip]

2. I am at a loss.

Seriously, I do not get it. Those who consider illegal wiretapping some kind of necessity and protecting those who do it important aren't going to be voting for Obama anyway.

Maybe it's something as simple as getting it out of the way so as to be able to concentrate on other things. But, geez, this is kind of important.

[woolldog]

15. who is being illegally wiretapped under the new FISA bill?

From what I understand purely domestic communications remain under the scope of FISA. Section 702(b)(4). AND FISA protections are extended to Americans abroad, which isn't currently the case. Section 704.

So where's the illegal wiretapping here? What am I missing?

[grantcart]

26. well technically it won't be illegal

but I think you are asking is what type of communication will not require warrants.

Communication that is completely foreign to foreign source does not require warrants - this is unchanged.

Now foreign communication that originates in the US or ends in the US does not need warrants.

You are correct in the fact that it extends warrants to Americans abroad and that it also brings the whole FISA/PAA into Congressional oversight.

[woolldog]

28. thanks

responded to your post below at the same time.

Hopefully one of the first things Obama will do when elected is simplify this ridiculously complicated bill!

[John Q. Citizen]

3. FISA doesn't have a "pro" constituency with the exception of the bush administration and

the telecoms and their lobbyists.

Daschle is one of their lobbyists.


So i have to figure that Obama is backing it because Daschle wants him to.


I can't figure out any other reason.

And if the amendment fails, which it probably will since the Repos will vote against it, and some Dems will vote against it, then Obama will vote for the bill, immunity and all.

This will make Daschle very happy and a lot of money.

[Skip Intro]

4. my take:

he took the stance of support for the bill out of political consideration, to sheild himself from being called weak on national security for having voted against a "tool" of protection - pure politics - and now that he's been called on it, refuses to admit he was wrong, as that would be a sign of weakness, much as Hillary would never apologize for her vote on the IWR.

My rights, and yours, hang in the balance here, tho. And are more valuable than any poltiician.

My take.

[NattPang]

6. Your rights and wrongs are already gone. Obama's vote will not restore them.

Whichever way it goes.
you exaggerate tremendously.
Why?

[Skip Intro]

9. on edit: wait, what are you saying?

what "wrongs" of mine are you talking about?

you sound as if you are trying to diminish the importance of the rights guranteed to ALL of us by our own constitution - why would you want to do that?


I think people should stand up for what they believe in

when the hell did that become an ideal we ran from?

fuck political posturing, stand up for my rights, dammit! that IS the job description.


my take was asked for and given

it is your opinion that I exaggerate

[NattPang]

14. Your rights do not hang in the balance due to this bill.

Your rights are already gone.

Obama can't restore your rights with his one vote
whether he votes up or down.

So the whole, "Our rights hang in the balance" is pure theater.
Your rights were given away a long time ago.
Remember the PPA?

[Skip Intro]

19. Now we know your take and mine. nt

[MarjorieG]

16. I think it's the "f" and the "d" that people throw to say really, really critical, beyond important

[Joe Fields]

32. If Obama took a strong position against it, then he would show

the kind of leadership we all could be proud of, instead of caving to the bullies, for fear of looking weak on national defense issues.

[Duder]

5. Here's one person's theory...

Personally, I don’t think that Obama has moved but for those that believe he has and have “concerns” perhaps this article by Paul Hogarth might be worth a read:

“Move to the Center” Need Not Alarm Progressives

In recent weeks, some progressives have been alarmed at Barack Obama – who they fear has “moved to the center” for the general election. They have argued that his recent shifts won’t help him pick up “swing voters,” but it’s clear that Obama is playing pre-emptive defense rather than trying to win new supporters. Obama knows that if he sticks to the progressive rhetoric that helped him win the nomination, a media narrative will take hold that he is running like George McGovern – and the campaign is deftly trying to avoid such a trap. But unlike Bill Clinton’s right-wing capitulations in 1996, it’s hard to conclude from Obama’s recent “shifts” any long-term policy consequences. For those who fear that Obama’s posture signals another Clintonian “sell-out,” the time to hold him accountable will be after the election – when as President he will be in a position to bring about change. But for now, there hasn’t been much to signal such an alarm.

Civil libertarians are furious at Senator Obama’s decision to vote for the latest FISA bill – which includes retroactive immunity for phone companies who helped the government spy on American citizens. Obama also took a “centrist” position on two Supreme Court decisions – he condemned the Court’s ruling that applying the death penalty to child rapists is unconstitutional, while agreeing with the Court’s opinion that struck down the gun ban in Washington DC. And late last week, while maintaining his commitment to end the Iraq War, Obama said he may be flexible about when troops will come home.

Not only are some progressives upset, but a few have concluded it’s a losing strategy. “Running to the middle to attract undecided swing voters didn’t work for Al Gore in 2000,” said Arianna Huffington. “It didn't work for John Kerry in 2004. And it didn't work when Mark Penn convinced Hillary Clinton to do it in 2008. Fixating on – and pandering to – this fickle crowd is all about messaging tailored to avoid offending rather than to inspire and galvanize. And isn't galvanizing the electorate to demand fundamental change the raison d’être of the Obama campaign?”

The trouble with Huffington’s logic is that she assumes Obama is doing this to win the sliver of voters who are currently undecided between the two candidates.

Huffington is probably right that Obama’s recent moves won’t win many voters still trying to choose between him and John McCain. But Obama doesn’t need those people. Assuming he doesn’t bleed support between now and November, Obama has http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=5826">already won the election. What Obama’s really playing is a game of “pre-emptive defense”: don’t give McCain any opening to grab a chunk of his voters with a wedge issue, sabotaging what should be a Democratic rout. Not all Obama supporters are progressive, and some are vulnerable to defecting if dynamics change. With four months left, it could still happen.

http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Why_Obama_s_Move_to_the_Center_Need_Not_Alarm_Progressives_5839.html">Continued...

[CountAllVotes]

7. and yes it could change

there happens to be a Cynthia McKinney running for president too. She is a Green Party member.

We shall see huh?

:kick: for democracy

[babylonsister]

11. So there are many civil libertarians in our midst!

Here's something totally off topic, from Craig Crawford, that blew my mind. He does not like Obama but FISA isn't even mentioned. Maybe Obama is trying to win this thing, and can't risk talking about what his plans are once he's there.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2008/07/obamas-summer-landslide.html

Obama's Summer Landslide

By Craig Crawford | July 8, 2008


There seems to be no question that if the presidential election were held today, Democrat Barack Obama would win the Electoral College in a landslide. We're talking 300-plus votes, well beyond the 270 needed to win the White House.

Republican John McCain could not be in a worse position. His only hope is that the election is four months away and something could change.

To remain viable, McCain must convince the purveyors of conventional wisdom that the polls are somehow wrong. Perhaps the methodologies of surveys in battleground states are horribly mistaken - it wouldn't be the first time - but making such a case seems remarkably dicey at this juncture.

If there is danger for Obama in this situation, it is that his apparent invincibility comes so soon that by Election Day he will seem to be the incumbent -- a candidate so presumed to win that he actually comes across as having already won. Which makes McCain the true challenger and underdog.

And America loves an underdog.

[Political Heretic]

34. Arrianna Huffington is wrong on a few points:

“Running to the middle to attract undecided swing voters didn’t work for Al Gore in 2000,” said Arianna Huffington.

Yes it did.

“It didn't work for John Kerry in 2004."

Yes it did.

(This really has nothing to do with Obama, I just think its important that we remember history. Gore won. And I can't go as far as to say with absolute certainty that Kerry won, but due to the cover up in ohio (all district ballots "accidentally" destroyed desite a federal judge's court order that they be preserved pending lawsuit)- but its likely.)

[pinto]

8. To the source, here's a bit of his stance -

POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — Barack Obama had heard quite enough of the complaints that he is pirouetting, leaping, lurching even, toward the political center.

He is at heart, he told a crowd in suburban Atlanta, a pretty progressive guy who just happens to pack along a complicated world view.

“Look, let me talk about the broader issue, this whole notion that I am shifting to the center,” he said. “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.”

<snip>

“One of the things you find as you go through this campaign, everyone becomes so cynical about politics,” Mr. Obama said. There is an “assumption that your must be doing everything for political reasons.”

Voters should understand, he said, that they rarely will find themselves in 100 percent agreement with him. “But don’t assume that’s because I’m just doing it for “political reasons, he said.

“That just means we disagree,” he said.

more at:

Obama Addresses Critics on ‘Centrist’ Moves

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/obama-addresses-critics-on-centrist-moves/index.html?hp

[NattPang]

10. Maybe he read the bill?

[babylonsister]

12. Maybe he should elaborate more on his stand? nt

[skooooo]

17. Here's one take...

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/gtowndons/gGxl5b

The Guns of August*
By Gtown Don - Jul 8th, 2008 at 11:12 pm EDT

I suspect that what has a lot of Democratic Reps. and Senators cowering (including, sadly, Sen. Obama) is this: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/washington/10fisa.html?fta=y. For those who can't/won't follow the link, certain surveillance programs, authorized under the blatantly unconstitutional, but no-longer-in-force "Protect America Act" are set to expire in August. And this would produce "worrisome gaps" in "terrorist surveillance". We aren't told just what these programs really are, let alone what the "gaps" would amount to. National security dontcha know.

Now, even if telco immunity were removed or delayed by amendment, Bush has now threatened veto, meaning he'd rather see the "worrisome gaps" materialize than see his telco buddies still on the hook or see us getting to the bottom of the lawbreaking. Meaning, of course, that Bush himself really doesn't believe in the necessity of these mysterious programs for genuine national security -- only in their utility as a political tool. And what a tool they'd be. Imagine: "This month critical tools in the War On Terror will be lost because Democrats in Congress, including Sen. Obama, would rather defend terrorist's rights to privacy than the American people."

[az chela]

13. He is bought and paid for

[grantcart]

18. We live in a sub culture of liberal thought and for us Senator Obama

is someone who we feel very comfortable with and can agree or disagree with.

The second layer of questions in the polling shows that the country basically believes that Senator Obama is more intelligent, a better leader and has better plans.

And yet he only leads by 5-6 points.

Senator McCain's brand of Maverick has been lost and he is seen as a repitition of Bush and very old. Senator Obama scores higher in the "Highly Favorable" opinion than McCain - even in his own home state.

The election now evolves not so much in "moving to the center" but in connecting emotionally with the 'center' meaning people who intellectually agree with Obama but are still worried about change and having a leader that appears so different from them.

The FISA bill is a complex bill that is not as clear as the critics would paint it. On the one hand it gives Telecom Companies a second chance to get immunity (a conviction was not certain in any case), and now communications between domestic and foreign parties can be intercepted without a warrant. On the other hand Congress will now have an official role in oversight that they never have had. Also for the first time Americans overseas will be protected from warrantless search. Let me repeat that - the 5 million Americans who have never had constitutional protection from having illegal searches now have that. Is it a good bill - no.
Is it a constitutional destroying legislation no - that would be reserved for something that had a real and dramatic impact on people's lives - like the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens during WWII.

So the campaing has made a determination that the problem areas of the bill can be addressed later and it is better to take the modest steps forward that it does get rather than engage in a huge fight that very likely would undermine their objective of getting people who do not like McCain but are struggling to get comfortable with Obama to feel more at ease with him.

Those of us in DU forget that to many Americans the idea of an African American President with Muslim sounding names, a history with a crazy pastor and only one term in the Senate is an unnerving one.

If the campaign can get people to feel more comfortable with Senator Obama he will win the election. If Senator McCain can get the American people to be frightened of him then he will win. If the PAA/FISA bill does not pass then the Republicans will make a major effort to say that 1) Democrats cannot run anything - cannot get legislation passed 2) are too soft to look at the hard questions that National Security brings up. Nobody will be happier to see this legislation go down than Bush and McCain.

[skooooo]

21. That's by far the best thing I've read on the topic.

[grantcart]

24. thank you but in DU it is a very minority view

[skooooo]

29. why do you think that is??

[grantcart]

39. I think that there are two reasons for that

1) It has to do with the history of Congressional capitulation going back to the IWR. This smells like it is massive betrayal and while it is disappointing I find the comparisons beyond ridiculous.

The warrantless spying was a purely theoretical abbrogation of the Constitution. The IWR led to hundreds of thousands of real people dying and 2 million refugees. This is a real event with real people suffering.
The internment of tens of thousands of Japanese was a real abrogation of the Constitution. The warrantless snooping of business records may have led to some anti terrorist leads but where are the real people that were prosecuting for what was found by the NSA?
This is not to excuse it but to put it into proportion. Those that equate it with the Iraqi war trivialize real crimes IMHO. The reason for the reaction has more to do with their disappointment in Congress failing on the IWR than the merits on this legislation.

2) It seems to me that DU has a sort of competition to be the purest in ideology and certain points become part of an almost 'holy grail' that if you have a question or disagreement with points to an ideological sell out.

Again this legislation is not a great bill but it is hardly the sell out that it is being painted as.

[woolldog]

27. but...

"and now communications between domestic and foreign parties can be intercepted without a warrant."

My understanding is that the old FISA also allowed this as long as the surveillance didn't target any particular US person inside the United States. That required a warrant under the old FISA and under the new FISA it will still require a warrant.

[Joe Fields]

33. concerning your last paragraph...

It is up to the Senator to make us comfortable with his leadership. When he says one thing, then does another, especially when it is counter to the best interests of the citizens of this country, then it makes a whole lot of democrats uncomfortable. If he would have taken a leadership position on FISA, and made a strong stand against it, there is a better than even money chance it would go down to defeat tomorrow.

As for your statement about Bush and McCain being happier than anyone else, if it doesn't pass, that is just ludicrous. A whole nation will benefit, and most democrats will be jumping for joy. When Obama allows the opposition to define the debate, then he is already losing.

[vaberella]

20. I've posted these links before. Maybe you need to read and understand FISA before making claims.

He has to think of the people all over who haven't read and some of us have our own views, don't bother developing our own views based on the information but rather from others who we think are qualified. Let's read it for ourselves and some of us would be surprised by the bill that's causing all this drama.

The bill is far from perfect, actually it's not that great, but there are other bills far worse running around in the senate which address the issue and out of them this is the best one we have to pick from. Obama will work to completely amend it in his presidency, if not abolish it as he's stated if he's picked.

I suggest we get in an uproar when he becomes president because then we can really force the issue for a better bill; rather than wasting so much energy fighting against a bill which will most likely get passed based on the demographics of Democrats to Repubs in the office currently.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3570855

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6464503&mesg_id=6464707

[woolldog]

22. Notice how my question for specifics upthread went unasnwered?

This is the problem with all the outrage over the bill. Lots of emotion, very little in the way of facts.

[vaberella]

30. Exactly. It makes no sense. We're as much puppets if we depend on others to understand our

legislative system. Secondly, we're pandering to elitism, which has caused so much disparity, anger and frustration, by stating "They're have such and such qualifications." There are many pro-FISA who have far higher qualifications and still support it. It's non-sensical.

[babylonsister]

23. vabarella, I made no claims. I'm pretty regularly

on DU, and am an Obama supporter, and know I will be disappointed in Obama at times. It goes with the territory.
I just wanted to hear others' opinions, and your post is terrific. Thanks for your support and links! Far and above the effort many make. :thumbsup:

As for that uproar when he wins? Sheeeeesh, I cannot wait until Nov.

[vaberella]

31. Actually you did.

You implied that Obama is ignoring the people. This is what I take issue with. He's far from ignoring the people's concerns. He's issued statement after statement. I don't agree with many of his positions, however in this, I am a bit more lenient since I read the language and there is plenty Bush can do in the next six months. My hope is that when Obama is President then we can get some things taken care of, and I get the feeling he'll abolish this FISA bill.

Obama is not partial to this bill, keep that in mind and I think a lot of people need to remember that, but choose to forget. However, there are a lot of rumors on what Bush is planning in the fall in regards to Iran and Iraq and the damage he can wreck by Jan that I won't take a chance on this and I'll support Obama.

Secondly, this issue doesn't eliminate civil liberties as so many like to claim.

As for your support, excuse me if I sounded exasperated. There are about 5 threads posting on this same topic with the same rhetoric running around. I'm not about to call anyone names as so many are prone to do here as though we're 5 year olds in middle school.

I'm sure you're a strong supporter, however I'm surprised by how many people are giving in to divisive topics when details say otherwise. Secondly, I'm surprised some people on this thread are willing to believe that Obama is willing to throw away our civil liberties. It's horrifying to see that the man who supported the courts ruling of detainnees and has a strong grounding in law and civil rights---is basically being attacked and said to infringe the same rights that made his career. What a lack of trust in our candidate that shows and how amnesiac the people on this board can be.

[babylonsister]

36. Well, honey, we don't know each other yet.

Ask any Obama supporter on here, and they will support me. I have been on vacation for awhile; doesn't mean I have been throwing bricks at him. I WAS and AM a main Obama supporter. Trust me. And here's a fave of mine.

[vaberella]

37. My final statement was not directed to you personally in any way.

I'm speaking of the many people on this thread and those that have aided in creating about 100 more threads in the same ilk promoting this same disingenuous ideas. I'm from NYC and lived here all my life and when it comes to the FISA, as I said I don't like it and I do think it gives retroactive immunity because civil suits are not allowed (criminial suits still stand trial).

I do think though that there are real threats that can not be denied and said to be make believe. However, I will say the usage by the republican party is basically implementing mass hysteria more so than really focusing on protecting the nation which is seen when we see Katrina and the complete meltdown of infrastructure.

[pnwmom]

25. Because WE, as in Democrats, are not a monolith.

There will always be a diversity in opinion and it will always be impossible to completely satisfy everyone at once.

That's why politics is the art of compromise -- something that Ted Kennedy has always known, which is a big reason for his long-term success.

[dailykoff]

35. Good question. This is starting to smell like Iraq.

A hundred excuses, none of them worth dust in the wind, and anybody who's come withing twenty feet of the thing knows it stinks. My guess is he was so sure he had it in the bag (witness the campaign seal) he was breaking his campaign promises just to prove he could.

[Oak2004]

38. Because it was a political deal

I can only speculate about how the deal ran, but I'd guess Rahm Emmanuel had a hand in the deal-weaving, and Rahm Emmanuel has good connections to Obama. And I suspect the deal is less about delivering Obama something than it is about delivering the Congressional leadership what it wants. Obama, I've noticed, rarely if ever opposes the leadership.

Though, the deal might well involve a "trade" like campaign appearances and the offer of various Senators' political apparatus.

Congress is like an iceberg. Most of what happens happens out of sight. Very little happens in full view. This has all the odor of something only a (metaphorical) submariner could fully understand.