SF Pride - Obama Contingent

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Time: Sunday, June 29 at 10:30 AM Duration: Host: Michael Zonta Contact Phone: Location: Gay Pride Parade (San Francisco, CA) Market Street at First Street San Francisco, CA 94102

Pink is the new black.
Meat is the new bread.
McCain is the new Dole.

I am a huge Barack fan, have been since Edwards dropped out. I am LIVID with him regarding FISA, we all should be, he broke his promise on this issue. Is this what we have to look forward to?

Move on has started a campaign, please call. Thank you.

http://pol.moveon.org/call/?cp_id=758&tg=479

PLEASE CONTACT RE: FISA

http://obama.senate.gov/contact/index.php

Senator: I have donated several times to your campaign, volunteered, and now I am totally disillusioned. You PROMISED to FILIBUSTER FISA, and now you reversed yourself. We both know there is NO WAY YOU WILL GET IMMUNITY REMOVED, so unless you promise when elected to go after the telecoms criminally, I beg of you to filibuster this bill in the Senate this week.

A HUGE storm brewing over this, and now that you have broken your word, it much bigger than you might perceive. Thank you.

BTW have you guys ever watched "The Last Dragon"....it's the best movie EVER.

Ok. Now I'm totally talking to myself. I guess everyone left for the day.

Amelie, I agree with you most of the time but not on this one.

Great moral principles and $3.25 will buy you a grande latte at your nearest Starbucks.

Seriously, politics is an endeavor that requires that we choose our battles. Sometimes we simply do not have the votes and need to cut our losses and move on.

Contrary to many progressives, I am not upset with Obama on this. I am GLAD that he has the pragmatic, political judgement to count the votes. He should do everything he can to get retro immunity stripped from the bill. But voting against the underlying measure would do nothing more than paint a political target on his back for the Republicans.

If Dems don't screw up, we are going to have the most progressive Congress and President since the 30s, much that is not possible now will be possible in January. If they are still chickenshit then, I will join you in protesting.....

.....until then I will keep my powder dry and assume that Obama is in a better position than I to decide what compromises he needs to make.

I'm pretty pissed off about the FISA "compromise" myself but my anger is directed at Pelosi for agreeing to the damn thing. Why is everyone's anger focused on Obama?

Frankly, I don't know if Obama can oppose this now without being seriously damaged as being "far to the left of the Democratic Party". WTF is up with Nancy here, anyway? How about some new Congressional leadership after the elections?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. AIPAC sellout. FISA sellout. Not to mention capitulations on issues I don't care about like campaign finance reform. I'm just glad I found out before November.

Elizabeth2:

I can't speak to the other provisions of the currently-proposed FISA bill. I just don't know enough about them, but it does seem that everyone's anger is focused on the immunity provisions ...... and, honestly, that part is just not worth it.

My anger is focused on the whole currently proposed "compromise" FISA Bill. It's not just about the immunity for the telecoms that needs to be scrapped, it's the fact that it provides permanent immunity to the President for the fact that he broke the law, it permanently blocks lawsuits that would reveal exactly what he did, and it legalizes the totally illegal spying regime that he secretly ordered in 2001 -- before 9/11 ever even took place.

As for the new provisions, they give expanded ability for the president to authorize wiretapping on American citizens without any real oversight.
This is what Caroline Fredrickson of the ACLU has to say on the subject of the new warrantless eavesdropping provisions included in this bill:

This bill allows for mass and untargeted surveillance of Americans' communications. The court review is mere window-dressing –- all the court would look at is the procedures for the year-long dragnet and not at the who, what and why of the spying. Even this superficial court review has a gaping loophole –- "exigent" circumstances can short cut even this perfunctory oversight since any delay in the onset of spying meets the test and by definition going to the court would cause at least a minimal pause. Worse yet, if the court denies an order for any reason, the government is allowed to continue surveillance throughout the appeals process, thereby rendering the role of the judiciary meaningless. In the end, there is no one to answer to; a court review without power is no court review at all.

This is why people are so upset. While we all want Obama to win in November (at least I know I do) many of us also feel it would be monumentally stupid to act as though our Fourth Amendment right to privacy and against unreasonable searches and seizures unless there is probable cause is something that is not worth losing -- no matter who the president is.

Bluebell- Go away, really. Taylor Marsh misses you and so do the kooks on redstate. And are there any adults on these blogs anymore? Or is this the obama bashing site. please let me know so I can stop visiting. But, would that not be like all of you threatening to not donate to him anymore. my god! listen to yourselves-angry people as though he wrote the whole things himself and is now betraying you somehow. If these are his supporters I would rather not associate myself with the likes of some of you who are behaving like the world has ended. what did you do to stop the war from happening? huh? what are you continuing to do to bring our troops home? There is one candidate who sadi he will, the other two said nothing and even voted for that ugly, damn war. so ONE thing you don't like and threats start to come out. shame on you. and someone needs to call you guys out on this.

Des-

So if this supposedly changes everyone's opinion on Obama, who are you going to vote for, McZZZZZZ? Come on...

He's a Human friggin' Being for crying out loud!

These people are the same wishy-washy people that make the polls go up and down everytime something happens to our candidate that they can't handle.

People, we need to be there for Obama no matter what happens. He is a brilliant sun-of-a-gun. Everything he does is for a reason.

We should feel bless that we can represent such a strong candidate in these times.

I agree. Let's keep our eye on the big picture.

John McCain Voted to Filibuster Minimum Wage Hike

For God's sake just forget about the fisa compromise. It really is a non-issue in the grand scheme of things. Come on people, let's just move on.

Now, this is some good news. 90% of white americans are ok with an african-american president. Hello!!!! That says alot about our country and is a good thing. I would hope it would be 100%, but 90 is pretty damn good.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/22/obama-and-race-most-white_n_108503.html

No more fisa. I'd rather see whining about mcbush.

chicalifornia- yeah! Totally. I want a brilliant man for a President, or a woman (just not HRC-). Yes, I want him to be human, flawed adn to be JUDGED by all that he does and not on ONE freaking vote.

I'm going to donate to Obama tonight. I'll include a little comment about the FISA vote. But I still think it's important to donate.

I'll take Elizabeth2 and rajapi for 500, Alex.

i am watching the replay of MTP now on MSNBC and I must say, Joe Biden is very, very impressive. He counter pointed Sen Graham on every point seamlessly. He was great.

Yep ..... that's why I'm still holding my breath (tho clearly not my typing fingers) hoping that Obama will pick Biden as his VP -- er, VP candidate I mean. Hopeful thinking there.

Elizabeth2,

This is from a post put up by "Hunter" at Daily Kos yesterday:

So, why have activists spent so much effort opposing retroactive corporate immunity as part of new FISA legislation, when there are so many other things in the world to be outraged about? Why do so many people care so much about a mere technical issue such as whether such-and-such is legal or illegal?

I can count three reasons.

1. It goes to the heart of illegal actions by this administration. The Bush administration has broken law after law, and been enmeshed in scandal after scandal, and been met with no substantive actions. There are investigations that never end; there are stern letters that are never answered; there are subpoenas that are simply ignored. So to respond to a clearly illegal act by, of all possible things, writing legislation that offers retroactive immunity for those acts, maintains the secrecy of those acts, and declares that the Bush administration itself will be responsible for the future integrity of those acts — it is patently asinine. It is an insult. It demonstrates a complete lack of regard for the law, and for the very responsibilities of each branch of government. In this, it is symbolic of the entire current Congress, which has proved itself all but nonfunctional when it comes to checking abuses by the executive branch — or even by their own branch.

2. It is a Constitutional question, and of a sort that the administration has fought long and hard to cripple. Among the more basic premises of the Bill of Rights is the notion of probable cause; your government may not conduct searches or seizures without a warrant, and the judicial branch shall judge the merit of those warrants. But the Bush administration wishes simply nullify that entire concept, if those searches are electronic in nature. It takes no imagination at all to observe that once one type of widespread, warrantless, causeless electronic search is deemed to be outside of 4th Amendment protections, an entire series of other electronic searches will follow. That is, after all, the entire reason the Bush administration pursued these searches illegally, rather than attempting to change FISA law in advance; they have every intention of creating a precedent for future searches, and they now have been given exactly that.

3. It was easy. I mean, Jesus H. Christmas, it has been the easiest thing in the world — all they had to do was not do it. It’s not freakin’ rocket science — but thanks to the efforts of a number of Democrats, not just Rockefeller and Hoyer but people like Reid and Pelosi, they just couldn’t not put immunity in. We were never told why it was so all-fired important — they would never grace us with any non-childish, non-condescending, non-flagrantly-insulting explanation. But instead of just not passing bills granting immunity, we had Reid treating Dodd more shabbily than he ever treated any Republican, and Hoyer apparently going around Pelosi, and all manner of prodding and dealing by Democrats to get immunity for these acts. It is baffling, and the only rationale available seems to be the most cynical one — it is merely doing the bidding of companies that provide substantive campaign contributions. No other explanation would seem to suffice.

So those are the reasons. Because of all the issues we’ve faced, in the last few years, this one was an absolute no-brainer, the one thing that the Democrats, no matter how stunningly incompetent, humiliatingly ineffective or bafflingly capitulating they may be, could manage to win simply by sitting on their damn hands. But no; it took serious work to lose on this one. Serious, burning-the-midnight-oil work to manage to quite so cravenly negate their own oversight duties.

I thought he made great points on why this bill is so important, and why so many are upset.
You can read the rest here, if you're interested:
Why Do We Care About FISA?

Truthwhip- I don't give a rats rear end to this bill. You know why, I care more about the amount of money I dole out each week when I fill up gas, or when I buy a gallon of milk and eggs and bread and when I have friends who are on their 4th tour of duty and people who I speak to when I go door to door are freakin HURTING like hell. So, pardon me if I don't give a whit about your stupid bill, or the constitution or the bill of freaking rights, and least of all your feelings that senator Obama has single handedly managed to break. Get a grip. There are bigger issues to combat and those are much much much much more important than FISA or anything else. And please, stop whining. It's unbecoming. reminds me of talkleft and other HRC sites.

It beehoves me.

As much as I want Obama to become our next president, I will feel no better having him eviscerate the Constitution than I feel having Bush do so. This is one of those votes where Congress can demonstrate that they understand the Constitution and understand that it is our Constitution both in war and in peace, both in times of ease and in times when we are badly stressed.

Once you pick and chose which parts of the Constitution you are willing to give up on you have given up the whole thing, subject to the whims of the President. I'm just not willing to give up on a single word in it. That document clearly lays out the procedure for making changes in it, and that is the one and only acceptable way to change it. I'm amazed at the number of people here who are willing to give up the pieces that they don't believe directly affect them, just to ensure getting Obama elected. Shame on you!

whatever makes you happy. if bashing obama is your thing then that is your problem. Wrapping yourself up in the constitution when bread and butter issues are critical is frankly too much for me personally. But, you gotta do what you gotta do. Good luck to you all. Happy Obama bashing. where are bluebell and truthwhip?

I really think MoveOn badly handled their disagreement with Obama on the FISA bill. Now not only will the republicans accuse Obama of being weak on terrorism if he votes against the bill, but they will also say he caved to MoveOn demands which would make him look very weak and controlled by the far left. It would have been much better if the leadership of MoveOn had asked for a private conversation with Obama and they could have hashed out the issue that way. As it is, MoveOn is coming off really arrogant and centered on one issue. So you're telling Obama that he has to filibuster in the Senate? Well, get in line behind the people tellling him he has to pick Clinton as VP.

Truthwhip ---

Thank you for the link. I did read it and I still see the same problem: co-mingling the government's actions with the companies' actions when, legally, they are very, very different. But let me explain in detail. (Long, boring detail but then I already confessed to being a lawyer, didn't I?)

(1) “So to respond to a clearly illegal act by, of all possible things, writing legislation that offers retroactive immunity for those acts, maintains the secrecy of those acts, and declares that the Bush administration itself will be responsible for the future integrity of those acts -- it is patently asinine”

This, as I said, switches the cast of characters: The illegal acts were those of the *government* (Bush administration) not the telecoms, so immunity for the telecoms is simply beside the point. If immunity is defeated and the lawsuits go forward, I’d say there’s about a 90% chance they will be dismissed before there is much opportunity to do discovery, any chance to probe into the secrets.

Why? Because they have a very strong defense for THEIR actions: they relied on an apparently lawful order by government officials who had the power to give such an order. In fact, under the law as it existed at the time the gov’t could go to a judge for pre-approval OR direct the records be turned over and then have it retroactively appoved by a judge. So there was no way the telecom could know, at the time they were told to turn over the records, if the order was going to be given approval in the future, even if it didn’t arrive with a warrant. (I believe Qwest was able to make its principled stand - relying on the Nuremburg principles - after it became apparent that the government wasn't getting approval either before or after ... but it's a risky move to make.)

Simple principle: The law does not favor giving private individuals or entities the power to decide on their own what is or isn’t lawful (not until you get to the extreme examples under the Nuremburg doctrine). So if you follow what appears to be a lawful order by your government, then the law protects you. Example I’ve used elsewhere: if there’s an accident up ahead and a cop tells you to do something plainly illegal – like drive eastward on the westbound lane – then you’re supposed to do it, not quibble and inquire into his reasons or authority. So if another cop arrests you for doing something that is, in fact, illegal, you have an absolute defense: you were following the orders of someone with apparent authority to give those orders.

So how the heck is allowing citizens to bring probably-losing lawsuits against the telecoms going to prevent the Bush administration, or any other government, from doing just what they did here?

Furthermore, there IS already a remedy, one that takes the case directly to the wrongdoer - the government. 43 USC 1983 is a powerful tool and it makes all of us “private attorneys generals” in enforcing our Constitutional rights. Study some of the civil rights litigation if you doubt its power.

Now it’s true that you won’t get rich even if you win - you probably won’t get enough to pay your attorney unless you can prove specific damages beyond the constitutional violation itself (On the other hand, you won’t get very rich bringing a losing lawsuit against the telecoms either.) But you would get discovery rights, and you would if successful get a declaration that the people actually responsible for this invasion of privacy were acting unconstitutionally.

The person who wrote that article in Daily Kos isn’t trying to get to the telecoms and make them shape up *their* act - he (I'm assuming from the name) wants to hold the Bush administration accountable. So why not sue the Bush administration instead of some private third party who has a very solid defense?

(2) I can’t disagree with the fact that probable cause, 4th Amendment etc. are very important and that the Bush administration may have acted as it did to nibble away at such rights or set the precedent that they can be erased in little bits. ------ But we are dealing with people (those currently in power, the young ones on the Supreme Court, and one trying to get into the White House and appoint others to the Supreme Court) who want to go a lot further than chipping away at the implied right to privacy of the 4th Amendment. They want to start right at Article I, ripping away any limitations on the government, even the most honored and ancient.

So I’ll use the same argument – maybe that’s why they are focusing on GITMO detainees, not American citizens, because most of us won’t get too exercised about that. And once the precedent is set – once it’s established by the Supreme Court that habeas corpus can be rescinded in connection with a specific group of people that are troublesome, even when there is no rebellion or active invasion, then there is no limit. None. Habeas corpus has never rested on the identity of the person confined – it looks to the acts of the government in confining.

I know we all feel a lot more warm and protective about our own private telephone conversations than we do about the rather scary GITMO detainees, but let’s be realistic about which is the bigger threat to our rights, to all of them. You have NO privacy rights (or free speech, or free association, or right to bear arms or any of the rest of it) if you are in a prison cell unlawfully but have no way to get anyone’s attention, to have someone in authority demand that your confinement defended as lawful.

So, up against that threat, I’d deal with the FISA situation in a very pragmatic way. Is the bill (the substantive part) better than present law? If yes, work to get it passed; if no, leave it be and concentrate on a battle that will make some real difference. It may well be that the law as it stands is just fine ..... that the real problem is that we’re just dealing with a bunch of hoodlums! ------ Does the bill take away protections that are there in the current law? If no, give it your blessing. If yes, oppose it as much as possible without crippling yourself (time, energy, money, political capital). Because the most important thing is to get the hoodlums out of power. (I don’t know the answer to those questions, by the way - substantive provisions of the proposal vs. current law.) ----- Does the immunity part of the bill really make a difference? Is IT worth the expenditure of that time, energy, money and political capital? I don’t think so. If Obama doesn’t think so either, then he shouldn’t waste time and effort on it, no matter what he said back when this seemed like the biggest threat on the horizon.

If you saw the video of his talk to his Chicago staff after clinching the nomination, you may have been caught - as I was - at the sense of .... something, not exactly fear but being a bit in awe or overwhelmed ... when he talked about their having to work now, that there’s no other option, it all rests on their shoulders and on his. I bet that heavy responsibility does give you a new kind of vision about which fights are important and which are going to be distractions from the main goal. And, yeah, maybe some of your old promises don’t seem so wise from that vantage point. Think about it – how would you feel if YOU were one solitary person standing between this country and John McCain and the people he would appoint to the Sup. Ct. I suspect it’s pretty damn sobering - and that’s just how Obama looked that day.

(3) I’m having a little trouble with this one since I haven’t been following things all that closely, but I gather this reason for anger is that, according to the writer, it would have been so easy for them to have kept immunity out of the bill. Just on the face of it, I’d have to say that’s wrong.

No one is having fun because this hornet’s nest has been hit, and it was already clear that immunity was going to be a *big deal* (I'm wondering if it wasn't a big red herring...) So I’m convinced that there was some persuasive reason for their including it. Have no idea what. Maybe the bill itself is an improvement on current law and they feel it’s needed and they couldn’t get the votes without the immunity. ------- Maybe – it’s possible you know – that some felt it is fair to grant retroactive immunity. The telecoms were obeying apparently lawful orders, so should they be sued? There are probably reasonable people who feel that they shouldn’t. Maybe those same people feel that those *giving* the orders should be strung up by their thumbs, but think it’s unfair to make the telecoms the target for everyone’s outrage. ---- Maybe some of them are concerned that because the telecoms will have a very strong, very accepted defense and conclude that a long string of LOSING lawsuits against them would be worse than none at all, would further demoralize people. ---- Maybe they feel like Gerald Ford did, that the important thing is to end this sorry chapter and move forward. Many people who didn’t vote for him because of the pardon later applauded whole-heartedly when he received the Profile in Courage award for just that act. ---- Maybe they are concerned that all these lawsuits looking into what information was released to whom would just be more invasion of people’s privacy.

I don’t know what the reason(s) were, but there was one, or some. And yes, it would be really nice if they would explain ..... unless there were such a variety of reasons, no explanation would suffice (and would probaly start a brawl). Unless they feel the explanation (“Look, you’d lose every damn one of those lawsuits. It would be futile.”) would be as demoralizing as the invasion of privacy in the first place. I can't prais or condemn the decision to include immunity because I just don't know enough of the relevant facts .... but I doubt Hunter does either.

I think the core problem with his argument is highlighted in a statement further on: “This petty, stinking issue of granting retroactive immunity to companies that violated the law,....”

But they didn’t. And they sure as heck didn’t violate our constitutional rights, because only government, not private entities, can do that. The 4th Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures BY THE GOVERNMENT. (If a private party does it, it’s called theft, kidnapping, etc.) If I’m right about this (and civil, specifically governmental, liability is something about which I do know a lot.), then GOVERNMENT violated the law in giving those orders without seeking, before or after, the approval of a judge, but the companies didn’t violate any law by complying with those orders.

In fact, maybe some of the people who want to grant that immunity want to do it in order to shift attention back to the real wrongdoer: Bush & Co. Don’t sue the companies: they didn’t do anything wrong and you’ll lose. Sue the government in a 1983 action – that’s where the culprit is.

Look, we don’t really care what information was disclosed, and we know what motivated the companies to do the disclosing. What we citizens care about, or should care about, is why, for what reason, the government gave the orders to the telecoms in the first place and what use they made of the information they obtained. It’s the governmental action, not the corporate action, that is the threat and that should be the focus of any inquiry.