Issues With Obama's FISA Backing

Once back in 2003 I fervently disagreed with Barack Obama on the, at the time, new ethics laws in Illinois. I was against making criminals out of regular people for supporting their choice in a political candidate. Something as simple as using an email account for political reasons would become "illegal." For instance, a state university email account could not be used to send political email. Since I was working at a think tank at a state university where I sent political emails every day, I thought it wrong to label me as an ethics violator. Of course tenured professors would be exempt because there isn't anything they can do wrong. However, that was my first big disagreement with Obama. I had just met him, through my boss Senator Paul Simon. And Senator Simon was also an architect of the very bill I opposed.

Yesterday was another time that I found myself in total disagreement with Obama. His vowed support for the FISA compromise that includes amnesty for telecom companies as well as broadens the power of warrantless eavesdropping brought back reflections of the times in 2003 when I argued against such insane and often times very vague laws with Obama and Simon.

Gleeful Republicans love what the Democrats have done. Mainly because it is their president who would be charged with all sorts of crimes if the Dems didn't pass a FISA bill that contained retroactive immunity. And mainly it is because their president, who has long billed himself as a War President leading his country onto victory, has used war without end for nearly every action he's taken the last 7 years. This FISA compromise that Obama has pretty much guaranteed to pass lets a president with 25% approval ratings off the hook for blatant violations of the Fourth Amendment. This Republicans cheer as a victory for their Leader and their Party. And this is the very same POWERS Barack Obama has just reserved for himself after January 2009.

Even back in 2004 while running for U.S. Senate in Illinois, Obama ran as the change candidate. He refused to accept political labels and did not bow down to the numerous GOP candidates who tried desperately to make him a baby killing godless Chicago Democrat. Four years later he's still running on change. Maybe this change in support for the FISA compromise he has found himself flopping to will wake Senator Obama up to what all he has accomplished and the change he has already made possible. It would be only fitting that those he has motivated would demonstrate that they really don't want politics as usual. Maybe now those who have answered the call Obama has charged us with will show him that people really are smart enough and really do have the power to change this government and their candidate. Maybe now this will open up to the media that Obama is not perfect and deserves the scrutiny that should be applied to every politician.

It would be highly hypocritical of me after 7 years of blasting the blind followers of George Bush to quietly line up behind Obama on this issue and accept that what he has proven true to me isn't just a campaign stump. Change I do believe in and this movement is too strong and too numerous to fall lockstep in line. Obama has promised us change. Let us make that promise right back to him.

*Update:

On Friday MoveOn.org announced that it was going to be suspending it's operation as a 527, due in large part to Barack Obama's call to change politics as normal. Yesterday when Obama announced his support for the FISA compromise that included retroactive immunity for telecom companies, MoveOn says it's now going to hold Obama to his October 2007 promise that he would filibuster any FISA bill containing retroactive immunity.