Obama’s FISA Vote – Is This What We Are Supposed to Swallow?
I wish I could see Obama’s FISA vote as just an election-mode calculation, rather than a warning about his true view of the US Constitution, but I have seen no sign that his vote is anything but irresponsible. Obama stated that we should trust that, when he is POTUS, he won’t abuse this illegal power he has handed to George W. Bush for the next 6 months. Firstly, I trust Obama to be many things, but a reliable soothsayer is not one of them. Secondly, what if the November election does not result as Obama foresees? I suggest Obama reexamine the US presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. And thirdly, what is it about the Bush administration that leads Obama to believe they won’t abuse this power over the next 6 months?
The point is that we the people, including Barack Obama, are now legally spied upon by the federal government and its agents, no matter who is POTUS. We the people pay the price for election-mode calculations gone awry, often in the form of legislation, authorizations and resolutions.
If Obama had admitted a real reason he voted this way, I could live with it in disagreement if it sounded like the truth, and not the usual pabulum I am embarrassed to hear coming from him. He did not bother to give a full and honest explanation to we ‘research-based voters’. I guess it looks good to have the so-called ‘left’ angry at you, but what about we pesky Libertarians and Constitutionalists? It’s a profound miscalculation to not only willingly sacrifice the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, but also to glibly ‘dare’ a large part of his foundation of support, to no longer support him. Obama stands to lose a lot more than my enthusiasm. College students for example, active in politics for the first time in generations, are easily bored by politics, and they know when they’ve been used.
FISA has no expiration date and the pressure to vote ‘yes’, in the interest of national security, is another example of the Bush administration’s fear-mongering in order to protect wealthy corporate lap-dogs, to amalgamate executive power, and to steal yet another ‘inalienable right’ from the people. In the Colonial era, illegal search and seizure was a significant offense committed by the British Government and was one cause of the American Revolution. Government exists primarily to defend our rights, as posited by the founders and as defined in the US Constitution; not to take them away. Bush administration fear-mongering is a familiar shell game to expose, and a game most Americans have agreed they are tired of. Obama’s ability to call upon the strength of the American people, against our fears, was a powerful subcurrent of his candidacy during the Democratic Primary.
Obama’s recent forays to the right of center have been enough. Shredding his “Constitutional Law Scholar” bonafides with the FISA vote wasn’t necessary, but shred he did. Antonin Scalia must be smiling. On this matter, we are not hearing from Obama “what we need to know” as he promised, but what Obama wants us to believe.
