FISA, the danger I see in it, a thank you for Keith Olberman, and yes, a warning for Barack Obama

On the eve of your day of independence from my lot, as a naturalized yank I thought I’d give you some thoughts and opinions regarding FISA and your constitution.

The bill allows for the warrant-less wire-tapping of foreign terror suspects, now to most freaked out, fearful Americans that sounds fine, I'm sure they’d feel that our secret service/law enforcement should be offered every advantage in their fight on terror. But, they'd be wrong, the bill doesn’t make any tangible difference to our secret service’s ability to track suspects, it merely means they don’t have to queue for a warrant.

Now put that into perspective, the original bill already allowed for agents to go ahead with tapping without a warrant, they merely had to apply within a certain time frame afterwards, so there was no argument about warrants, which seemed to be the thing supporters of the amendment crowed about most.

Also, the founding father’s believed, that ALL people should be provided equal rights, 'all men are born equal', regardless of citizenship, or any amount of insinuated guilt. This country should hold true to what has made it great, by remaining a shining beacon of justice and equality, when all around flap and panic America should stand tall and proud, not let itself be dragged into the gutter.

But I guess that’s irrelevant because the amendment is not only talking about 'foreign terror suspects’, it should and could read the warrant-less wire-tapping of anyone the govt and/or it’s representatives deem to be a ‘suspect’, which casts a much wider net.

Unfortunately, there’s no definition of ‘suspect’ other than those deemed to be ‘suspect’ by our government and its representatives. Don't think for a minute that 'foreign' has anything to do with it, there's no definition of that either, could an American Muslim be considered 'foreign'? could Mexican, Cuban or Polish immigrants be considered 'foreign'? could Green Card holders be considered 'foriegn'? that's me fucked.

Oh yeah! Not to worry there’s no definition of foreign either!

Basically, it covers anyone at all the government or 'any of its representatives' deem a suspect. That could include an angry neighbor who’s an agent or an ex-wife/husband/boyfriend holding a grudge, they could throw you on the list just for shits and giggles.

That’s all a bit too 1984 but 1984 was 22 years ago and it feels like it, believe me, big brother is quite literally watching us, just in our twisted version we can’t see him.

On issues like this there's a common misconception among some of our more foolish compatriots that ‘if you’re doing nothing wrong then you’ve got nothing to hide' but they’re really missing the point. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that totally innocent people will have their entire lives ruined because of what happened in congress last week.

Now, I know you're feeling all smug, because you've never picked up a parking ticket and have perfect children who could never get in any trouble and everything is neat and nice, but you are protected by the constitution whether you are aware of it or not. As citizens of this country we have to ensure we protect the weak and the vulnerable, our constitution is supposed to be there to protect the persecuted, the innocent, even those accused of guilt until they are PROVED guilty, especially the innocent, particularly those innocents accused of guilt.

Like the lemming I am and for the record, I want to state that Obama’s stance on the FISA amendment pissed me off, it even made me question him a bit, which was hard, because I’ve been behaving like a teenage groupy when it comes to Obama. I want everything he does to be brilliant but, unless he has some grand plan up his sleeve this was about as mediocre as it gets.

Still, regardless of my disappointment and unlike the hordes of trolls online over the past week or so, he’s still gonna get my full support. But, my decision to continue supporting him doesn't mean I’ll change my own position against the amendment, in fact, I feel I need to let off some steam.

Over the past week or two I've seen people shot down for daring to question the Senator, there was a general consensus among some of the prize fuckwits on Kos that ‘enough was enough’. They went on to make some absurd claims about supporting freedom of expression but felt ‘enough was enough’ and people should now stop voicing their opposition….WHAT!?!?!

Believe it or not, this is actually quite a regular occurrence on Kos. You see, people like freedom of speech as long as it’s speech they dig, they’re the worse kind of bully, cowardly cunts, I fucking hate them. I’ve seen some real mongoloid McCain fans on there trolling with a measure of unsuccess, but once in a while you’ll see a genuine comment or diary from someone, mistakenly believing there’s something positive about McCain or perhaps challenging an Obama position and they are trounced.

Anything remotely smelling of criticism of the Democratic Mother Theresa is immediately labeled troll, and in that moment, with that single word your entire argument regardless of eloquence is written off, dismissed, not deemed necessary for those delicate democratic minds to concern themselves with.

The feeling I got over the past couple of weeks is that no one should be daring to suggest that he got something wrong, instead we're seen as dissenters, we’re either with him or against him, we’re expected to shut up and accept it, nothing to see here, please move along now madam. But, isn't fighting precisely what this 'movement' is all about? Fighting for what we believe is right, not doing what we’ve been doing for the past 20 years and meekly accepting any old crap that’s fed to us.

I was pleased to see Keith Olberman obviously felt more needed to be said and dedicated one of his ’special comments’ to Senator Obama and the FISA amendment:-



I was well impressed with it and I thank him for recording it. I didn’t log onto Kos to see what those sycophants would’ve made of it, they love Keith as much as they love Obama, so I'm sure they were deeply torn, should they;

a) reaffirm their undying admiration and get behind he who can do no wrong
Or,
b) reaffirm their undying admiration and get behind he who can do no wrong

Well, I’m on the fence. Whether Obama made this decision for political reasons or whether he genuinely believes this is a decent compromise, makes no difference to me, he’s wrong either way.

But, if the American electorate begin to see him as a smart politician rather than an inspirational leader of a movement, he’s in trouble. If it’s gonna be hard to see where the politician stops and the inspirational leader starts, it’ll be a big turn off. The American electorate is traditionally apathetic, but he desperately needs them to be inspired, to be motivated.

To be fair to Obama, he’s clearly explained that he’d rather compromise and get Washington working than face an impasse, it's just that I don't believe in the FISA amendment. It seems to me that the amendment is all about the amnesty for those wealthy individuals who made the decision to break the law, and an administration covering their tracks, the terrorist surveillance bit was merely a wrapping to conjure a little fear. Nothing like fear to get the American public doing what you want them to do, eh!

As Keith points out there’s that criminal loophole, but I don’t take much comfort in that. What of the people who’ve been genuinely fucked as a result of the telecorp’s illegal activities? now they’ve no chance of financial reparation through civil courts, something I think the corporations feared most.

The constitution belongs to the people, it’s there to protect the people from their own government and we’re letting our representatives change it on our behalf, but not with consultation, they wouldn’t have dared ask the people what we thought, if they had they would’ve heard a resounding NO!

There's no way the American people would've agreed to an amnesty for corporations that broke a law aimed at protecting the American people.

What irks me most, is that the constitution belongs to we the people not we the government and our corporate cronies. So, if Obama's position was from a genuine sense that it was the right thing to do, it's worrying. If the Senator believes that the right thing to do is to trade off our rights, in order to protect those that have abused our rights he’s flat wrong. It doesn’t matter how scared he or we may be, people have sacrificed and taken great risks to protect our rights and they deserve more than this.

Personally, I'd find it far more palatable if his decision had been made for purely political reasons, after all he is a politician. But, that's a dangerous game for him.

Obama's in a uniquely precarious position, his message has appealed to a large disaffected section of the electorate and he's depending on them coming out and voting, many for the first time. But, I take no pleasure from this situation, because if he fails, we fail, if he loses and we lose.

These supporters aren't activists, they're not been involved in past politics and politicians responsible for the mess we're in. They're not all young either, some are older, just never voted. Obama desperately needs these people to remain inspired and committed to change, he needs them to wake up and get to the polling booth on November 4th. The last thing he needs is that support being put off by petty politicking and the FISA compromise smells like petty politicking.

The Republicans are gonna do everything they can to paint Obama as just another politician, an extremely talented one, but a politician all the same. They understand that he's where he is because he tapped into a desperate desire for change, it’s not a chicken and egg story, the American people have wanted this for years.

I’ve thought about the FISA thing a lot and I’ve read plenty of the arguments, for and against, I even understood a couple of them, but I don’t believe the constitution should be a political issue. The founding fathers would never have considered that elected members of the US congress, would one day be debating whether, or not, a key element of the constitution should retrospectively be amended in order to cover the tracks of those who ignored it. That somehow the representatives of we the people could sell out the American people's rights in order to protect those who had broken the law and abused the American people's rights.

What’s more, I find it galling that these people claim to be representing ‘the people’, for, if HR6304 had been put to a public referendum and was not misrepresented in the same way it was (grossly) misrepresented to congress, it would've been damned to failure by a landslide, and they know it.

Your amazing founding fathers, they left you with a brilliantly conceived and completed document, one that would protect you from those in power, with a careful system of checks and balances for the various branches of your government. Remember they serve you, not the other way around!

The passing of the FISA amendment in congress was a dark moment for America. With it the terrorists gained more than they’ve ever have as a result of blowing something up. We’ve thrown away a part of that we were entrusted to protect and all because we were scared. We did it selfishly and without a thought for our children or future generations of Americans.

I thought the congressional oath was to: support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic NOT ‘change and amend‘ if it gets in the way.

Perhaps something along the lines of ‘I swear by almighty God to selfishly serve myself and change the constitution if it gets in the way’ would be more apt.

At least the president gets a big caveat-- he‘s only got to do it ‘to the best of my ability’, so no one’s holding their breath on that one.

We’re no longer a nation of laws, but law breakers, we are no longer decent but the indecent, our leaders have ripped and scratched at that beautiful scroll called the American constitution and we have stood by and let them.

This is not a time to worry about petty politics, the constitution was there to protect us all we had to do was protect it, regardless of political affiliation.

Our badly bandaged constitution is in a serious state, it was intended to protect THE PEOPLE not the fucking government. It’s seen as getting in the way and is promptly altered by some hideous amendment.

I've seen a tag line that asks ‘would Jesus torture?‘ I’d ask ‘would the founding fathers torture?‘, but like the Kossack I already know the answer, they wouldn’t under any circumstance, simply because by doing so they would’ve become what they abhor, we, their descendants have become what they abhorred.

They say countries get the leadership it deserves well look what we have. We’re certainly no longer deserving of the graceful document left us, the founding father’s brilliance finally undermined by greed and fear, frightened little people like Limbaugh now having a greater impact on our constitution than our founding fathers, we’re left to fend for ourselves.

Thanks for that government of the people.