FISA and Obama--a disappointing calamity

The FISA "compromise," which passed in the Senate with an overwhelming majority yesterday, is an unabashed assault on the American constitution, a heinous disregard for personal rights, and a shameful free-pass to criminal activity--and it was all supported by our presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party.

The new FISA regulations effectively give the government free reign to scoop up and analyze any "intelligence" they see as beneficial to the War on Terror, meaning, any phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. that you may make. Say that a terrorist suspect arises whose name is coincidentally "Peter Ricci." All of my various methods of communication can be spied on at will with NO REPERCUSSIONS FOR THE WARRANT-LESS SEARCH (even this petty, meaningless ramble). With the Senate ruling yesterday and the president's signing today, the Fourth Amendment took an unprecedented blow, one that basically flushes our civil liberties down the toilet. So enjoy those freedoms while you still can, because the government now has access to each and every one of them.

To better understand how disgraceful this is, consider this historical analogy--Richard Nixon and Watergate. Prior to the current administration, Nixon and his Watergate spy scandal served as the precedent for abuse of presidential power, a shocking and demeaning exercise in paranoia and fascism. Nixon wiretapped the DNC and the homes of Woodward and Bernstein. Bush has wiretapped the entire country.

Except with Watergate, Nixon and his co-conspirators faced serious criminal allegations, with Nixon resigning and his numerous cronies receiving jail time. What the new FISA ruling details is an EXPANSION of surveillance power and a RE-WRITE of the rules governing those powers! So the president can now spy with more gluttony than before, and the rules have been changed to exempt the president, his cronies, and the telecoms corporations who cooperated with the criminal acts from any such allegations. It's beyond belief.

And then there is Barack Obama, who, with his support of the bill, offered his first fully disappointing decision of the primary season. Obama's stances on these issues has been patently obvious. A constitutional expert who lectured on the artifact at the University of Chicago, Obama clearly understands the rights entailed by the Fourth Amendment and the outright abuse the new FISA bill enacts on those rights. A believer in civil rights and justice, Obama has also promised to filibuster any bill that included telecoms immunity, which, um, this bill did.

No filibuster, no grand speech on the abuse of the Fourth Amendment. Just, "I don't like the bill but I must support it because we need to have a FISA legislation intact."

I understand that Senator Obama is under considerable pressure as the presumptive nominee, not only as the undeniable front runner in the race but also as the first viable black candidate in United States history, a glass ceiling of epic proportions. Nobody can put themselves in his shoes.

However, the proof is in the pudding. This new FISA bill is nothing short of fascism, or, corporatism if we're going to honor Mussolini. Look at it this way: the rights of the corporations exceed the rights of the citizens, and our government will go to great lengths to protect those certain inalienable rights of the CORPORATIONS, protecting them from criminal scandal at the sake of the very citizens that put them into power. Founding fathers, I can feel you rolling in your graves.

And these are fairly obvious transgressions of the bill. No hidden language, no tricks. Hell, the GOP has been practically boasting on how unconstitutional this bill is. So where in the bloody hell is Barack Obama?

I'll admit, I fell under the guy's spell. Politics is a dark, dreary game, and it can be especially maddening for anyone who attempts to follow it with any level of zeal. The hypocrisy, the back-scratching, the cronyism, it seems out of control and shameful while homeless Iraq War veterans starve under bridges, Ohio residents lose industrial jobs to China, and lower-class families see their tax rates rise while high income families see their tax rates fall.

He's charming, he's eloquent, and he's one helluva candidate. But, as John Elder correctly pointed out to me last weekend, he's "still a politician," one who will cut corners and sell-out stances to gain points in electability. It's just with this case, with this politician, it seems to hurt that much more.