2008-07-11

EFF Vows to begin "Immunity Repeal" movement

The EFF has vowed to begin the "immunity repeal" movement today. This is in response to the bullied Senate approving FISA update on Wednesday. Here is an excerpt from the EFF's statement:
This Wednesday, the Senate followed the House in caving to White House fear-mongering by passing an unconstitutional overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) dangerously expands the president’s warrantless wiretapping powers far beyond what the Constitution allows. Perhaps even more controversially, the FAA also contains provisions intended by the Administration to grant retroactive immunity from civil suits to the telecommunications companies that colluded in the president’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program.

I, personally, was horrified to see that Obama voted YEA. He has spoken-out against FISA's immunity section for some time now and even voted for a motion which would have removed it from the bill. Despite the TeleComs' immunity being removed, he still voted for FISA's approval. I know that a great deal of voters lost heart when he made that decision.

I, for one, will continue to stand by him. I know that, of the current candidates of all parties, he is the most in-line with my politics. However, I will be greatly disappointed if he does not act with more integrity in the future. If there is even the slimmest chance that Senator Obama will read this post, I want him to read this message:

Barack, you have the votes needed to become the President of the United States of America. Not through making your opposition comfortable with you, but rather because WE the people (the vast majority of hopeful Americans) have stood by you and saw in you the same dreams which we cling to. If you stray to far in your search for votes from those outside your main driving force, you will begin to lose the core of your foundation. Stay true to the man you have been, the politics you have had in the past, and the ethics you have written about in your books.

2008-07-09

FISA (TeleCom immunity) in Senate today

The "compromise" FISA bill which passed in the House (reference: TeleCom Immunity Resurfaces again), the same bill which Chris Dodd has been fighting against for some time now, will be put to a Senate vote today.

To repeat the summary I wrote when this disgusting and unconstitutional bill was in front of the House of Representatives...
A new FISA Bill has just been made public [PDF] which appears to yet again contain immunity for TeleComs that helped the NSA break the law and spy on millions of ordinary Americans for the Bush Administration. Let me repeat that... TeleComs helped the NSA break the law in order to spy on American citizens. Just to be clear, the NSA was created on November 4, 1952 in order to be responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence.

Once again, I will cling to the hope that the Senate will uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and destroy this loathsome mockery of a bill. I will update this post when the Senate vote comes through.

UPDATE (2008-07-09 14:26 MDT): Ugh! It passed 69 to 28 (3 did not vote). Worse still was finding Obama's name amid the Yeas even though an amendment - that he and others supported - to remove TeleCom immunity was rejected. The vote results can be found on this page: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00168