Blue Spot

Sunday Herald: International: International

BARACK OBAMA has been accused of betraying his most loyal supporters, by voting in favour of an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) he had promised to block. Civil liberties groups say the bill, which aims to make it easier to monitor terrorist suspects, violates the constitution and legitimises government spying on ordinary Americans.

The revised act grants immunity from prosecution to phone companies who assisted the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping programme, something Obama swore to resist as recently as June. Senate majority leader Harry Reid, chief whip Dick Durbin and Hillary Clinton all opposed the bill. Its passage was a significant victory for Dick Cheney.

By far the biggest group at social networking site mybarackobama.com, with more than 23,000 members, is called Senator Obama - Please Vote No On Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right. In defeat, user comments revealed a potentially damaging breach. Justin from Minnesota wrote: "it cost him my vote and I hope it will cost him the votes of many others." Alejandro from Seattle lamented that he "thought the whole point of the Obama campaign was to not be like other politicians".

advertisementGail from New Jersey addressed the candidate directly: "You lost your most ardent supporters, your workers, your donors," she posted. The fundraising model that Obama has used so successfully, tapping 1.5 million supporters for an average of $197 (£99) each, depends on the goodwill of such activists. At an event in New York this week he admitted donations have been "a little slow".

Obama's shift on the surveillance issue was not an isolated incident. He has been steadily creeping towards the centre ground ever since he secured the Democratic nomination, repositioning himself as a moderate with cross-party appeal. To his left-wing base, a key element of his coalition, this is apostasy, a cynical abandonment of principles that calls his entire claim to be a progressive into question.

Obama has endorsed the Supreme Court's decision to overturn a handgun ban in Washington DC on the grounds that "if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe". He has criticised the same judges for limiting capital punishment to murder cases, arguing that child rape sometimes justifies the death penalty.

He has backed off from earlier criticism of free trade agreements, watered down his proposal to alter the tax structure so that the richest pay more, hinted he would introduce stringent mental health checks for women seeking late-term abortions and committed himself to continuing the Republican policy of channelling funding for community services through faith-based programmes.

Labels: FISA, Obama, Obama supporters

Obama's surveillance vote spurs blogging backlash - CNN.com

Many of the liberal blogs who touted the Illinois Democrat early on have blasted Obama for changing his position.

One post on the blog DailyKos.com called Obama's decisions to vote for the bill a "sellout" and a "tactical blunder."

And on "getfisaright.com," a self-described group of 23,000 Obama supporters has posted an open letter to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, saying that "it is disheartening that you decided to support this bill, which does immense damage to the rule of law and our most fundamental democratic institutions.

"Even though we are disappointed, most of us continue to support you as a candidate," the group wrote. "But as a candidate you have work to do repairing our trust in you and in government."

Labels: FISA, Obama, Obama supporters

Here's Keith Olbermann last week, with another Murrow impersonation, urging Obama to take advantage of a "second chance" on FISA. Since Obama didn't take his advice, I wonder what he's going to say now. What possible defense can Obama's no. 1 cheerleader come up with now? I'll have to wait for another clip since his show is banned in my house.

Labels: FISA, Obama, Olbermann

Washington Wire - WSJ.com : Obama, Clinton Split on FISA Vote So much for unity? New York Sen. Hillary Clinton split with former rival Sen. Barack Obama today, voting against a controversial surveillance measure the expected Democratic nominee supported.

Obama has taken considerable flack from liberal activists since announcing a couple weeks ago that he would support the measure, which expands government surveillance powers in the United States.

Obama said he would work to eliminate a provision to grant conditional immunity to phone companies alleged to have participated in the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program, but amendments attempting to pare back or strip immunity from the surveillance bill were defeated Wednesday, as expected.

Obama won the nomination, in part, by running to Clinton’s left, but he has been tacking right since clinching the nomination in early June–which today landed him to Clinton’s right on the spy bill, which overhauled the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Obama’s own campaign Web site has become a hotbed of debate over his support for the compromise bill, spawning four groups in which opponents of Obama’s position vastly outnumber supporters—22,957 to 38. The “Get FISA Right” group blog on MyBarackObama.com was flooded with disappointed supporters after Wednesday’s vote, with more than 60 writing in within 90 minutes of the vote.

Labels: Domestic spying, FISA, Hillary, Obama, Obama critics, Surveilance

Democracy Now! | AT&T Whistleblower Urges Against Immunity for Telecoms in Bush Spy Program

The Senate is expected to vote on a controversial measure to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act tomorrow. The legislation would rewrite the nation’s surveillance laws and authorize the National Security Agency’s secret program of warrantless wiretapping. We speak with Mark Klein, a technician with AT&T for over twenty-two years. In 2006 Klein leaked internal AT&T documents that revealed the company had set up a secret room in its San Francisco office to give the National Security Agency access to its fiber optic internet cables.

Labels: Domestic spying, Feingold, FISA, Intelligence, Surveilance, whistleblowers

Obama Fails to Put Out the FISA Fire in His Own House | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet

In an unprecedented attempt to put out a fire in his own house, Senator Barack Obama yesterday issued a response to supporters who had been protesting his position on government surveillance. The release was followed by an 90 minute interchange on MyBarackObama.com between campaign officials and supporters (though as far as I could tell, the campaign officials made no comments themselves but just read the comments being made, leaving it unclear who was actually reading and for how long)..

Unfortunately, there was nothing in Obama's response that addressed the harsh criticism some of his supporters have voiced. I could go into detail on why the statement stinks, but since this is the Internet I don't have to, since I can instead direct you to the excellent point-by-point analysis offered by Glenn Greenwald. My focus here will be the novel political dynamic unleashed by the Obama campaign's social networking site, MyBarackObama.com.

These are uncharted waters we are dealing with here. Yesterday I asked the question whether 18,000 people protesting on the campaign's own web site (out of hundreds of thousands) were a lot or a little. Apparently they were enough to get the attention of the campaign and the candidate.

The comments were a mix of people who were star-struck that Obama had noticed them and written a reply, people who felt any criticism on the site was inappropriate, people who just spouted typical Internet invective at each other, but then an awful lot of extremely informed and thoughtful people who did not back down an inch.

Some defending Obama's position questioned whether the protestors were really from the Obama camp or were Republicans who had logged on to wreak havoc. However, since MyBarackObama.com is a full-fledged social networking site, one can check the profile of each commenter, see how long they have been active on the site, what action groups they are part of, and so on. It appeared that many angry critics were people who had put a lot of time and money into the campaign.

The whole episode raised more questions than it answered. Certainly what is going on here is something new. There are going to be many more controversial issues. A presidential candidate can't always be having to log on to the Internet to defend himself from his own supporters. I am reminded The Obama campaign promised to give its supporters new Internet tools to empower them to make the campaign their own. Now that it as done so, the leadership has to be wondering if it was a good idea. of the musicians who have figured out how to make modest livelihoods marketing their music directly to fans over MySpace, only to discover that doing requires spending hours every day maintaining the sort of direct relationship fans on social networking sites expect.

On the other hand, overall this has to be considered a victory for, and an extension of, democracy. This is a clear-cut case of a candidate promising one thing and doing another. Turns out that in the age of the online campaign there will be a higher price for this time-honored activity.

Labels: Domestic spying, FISA, Intelligence, Obama, Obama critics, Obama supporters