The FISA "Compromise"
I've been getting a lot of emails from people wondering what I think about the FISA deal. I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that I find it disappointing and predictable. I more or less agree with everything Glenn writes here, including his criticism of Obama. As the de facto leader of the Democratic party, Obama's silence on this issue is increasingly deafening. I think he could easily kill this deal if he really tried, but he doesn't seem to want to spend any political capital on it. As I've written before, I really don't see why the Democrats are so scared of this issue. I don't see anything but a political upside to taking a stand against granting retroactive immunity to big telecom companies who broke the law.
The fear, of course, is that if something happens between now and the election (i.e., some kind of terrorist attack), the Republicans will use the failure to pass FISA reform to blame the Democrats for the attack. And since the Bush administration won't sign any legislation that doesn't grant immunity to the telecoms (and thereby cover their own arses), the Democrats "have no choice" but to pass a bill which includes a retroactive immunity provision.
The sad reality, however, is that it really doesn't matter what legislation is passed. If there's another terrorist attack, the Republicans will blame it on the Democrats anyway. Now they'll just point to something else. At some point, the Democratic party needs to learn that it can't inoculate itself from Republican fear-mongering, so they might as well do what's in the country's best interest. And this isn't it.
The fear, of course, is that if something happens between now and the election (i.e., some kind of terrorist attack), the Republicans will use the failure to pass FISA reform to blame the Democrats for the attack. And since the Bush administration won't sign any legislation that doesn't grant immunity to the telecoms (and thereby cover their own arses), the Democrats "have no choice" but to pass a bill which includes a retroactive immunity provision.
The sad reality, however, is that it really doesn't matter what legislation is passed. If there's another terrorist attack, the Republicans will blame it on the Democrats anyway. Now they'll just point to something else. At some point, the Democratic party needs to learn that it can't inoculate itself from Republican fear-mongering, so they might as well do what's in the country's best interest. And this isn't it.
posted by A.L. at 9:57 PM
7 Comments:
It seems like there is some simple truth that could help inoculate against this fear-mongering by the Republicans. This fear mongering that cripples many democratic politicians.
The truth is that, were I a terrorist I would want the Republicans to stay in control. The belligerent USA that the Republicans project is the best thing for building up anti-USA sentiments of all kinds.
So, I wouldn't be surprised if this or that extremest group isn't working hard to have attack(s) between now and the election because they want the Republicans to stay in power.
Get this into the national conversation and then maybe the democrats can stand strong on a less-than-belligerent set of policies, including, e.g., reasonable internal policies (e.g., not spying too much on poeple in the USA), reasonable treatment of prisoners, etc.
-Andy
I never thought I would be saying this, but I think you are being a little hard on Obama here. Obviously, there are political reasons why Obama would not want to rush out to take a position to the left of the House Democrats who negotiated this compromise. It therefore may be, as you seem to assume, that Obama’s caution on this is politically motivated, but it is also possible that he is taking a close look at this from a policy perspective.
From that standpoint, the most important thing about the bill is how much authority the executive branch will have prospectively to engage in surveillance needed to protect the national security. If Obama thinks that the authority provided is sufficient, then he needs to think long and hard about turning down a power that he might need to stop the next terrorist attack. Even if he thinks that the authority is a little more than what he would have favored in a perfect world, he has to consider the fact that he expects and intends to be the president for the next four years (which is all the law would cover) and therefore will be able to institute any safeguards he thinks are needed to prevent abuse. In this regard, it is worth noting that there are no serious allegations, as far as I know, that even the Bush Administration has abused the surveillance power (in the sense of using it for political spying or something of the sort).
This leaves the question of telecom immunity, which is your focus. But while Obama presumably agrees with you that giving the telecoms immunity is not in itself a good thing, it is far from obvious that this consideration ought to outweigh the national security benefits of future surveillance activities. After all, if Obama thought that holding the telecoms legally accountable was substantively important (as opposed to politically convenient), presumably he would consider it far more important to hold members of the Bush Administration accountable for their actions. As far as I know, Obama has not suggested that he would investigate or prosecute Bush Administration officials for any activities related to the war on terror. So it seems odd, to say the least, that you would criticize Obama for failing to speak out on telecom immunity, while ignoring his silence on the much more significant issue of government “war crimes” or other alleged misconduct.
The tail end of the blog entry totally hits the point: The Democrat supporters just caved in. Maybe it's to give Obama some leverage to see that Democrats on the whole aren't as weak on terror as assumed. Maybe the Blue Dogs are trying to use similar language (and maybe some fucked-up logic) to influence future deals and agreements between the parties.
I am more interested to see how this will pan out for the next few years. I think a lot of us were promised changes in how a Democratic majority Congress would run, and I haven't seen anything yet. Maybe it's still too hard to handle while Bush is wrapping up. Maybe bigger things can come depending on who's at the helm. Either way, things need to change!
I just wish I lived somewhere where my incumbent (R) candidates were better threatened by opposition.
"If there's another terrorist attack, the Republicans will blame it on the Democrats anyway."
Exactly. Well, not exactly. Because it doesn't even matter if there is a terrorist attack or not. I'll quote myself
Update III: I noticed this comment/reply comment at Balkinization
'At what point do you think that the Republicans in Congress are going to wake up in a cold sweat about the vast surveillance powers they've just handed to a liberal black Democratic president?
January 21, 2009./
Spot on, I say. And this is going to stress our constitutional order. When a Republican is president, movement conservatives are comfortable granting him virtually unlimited powers to do what he says need be done in the name of national security. When a Democrat becomes president they then panic that they are living under totalitarian tyrrany irrespective of whether or not they actually are (case in point).
Heads or tails, it won't really matter. It wil be either Democrats are not protecting us from terrorists and we're going to die (John Bolton already expressed this view) or Democrats are not protecting us from terrorists and they're Liberal Fascists (Jonah Goldberg, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, et al."
I don't think the Democratic fear is predicated upon another attack. Rather, they are afraid of being defined by GOP as "weak"--quite aside from whether another attack occurs or not.
And the fact is they ARE acting weak--incredibly so. And acting weaker all the time.
The Democrats ARE weak, not just acting that way. The factions supposedly composing the majority in Congress is made up of some true liberals such as Ted Kennedy and Christopher Dodd, some old-guard Democrats like Robert Byrd, quite a few "conservative Democrats" like Steny Hoyer, quite a few opportunistic weasels like Rahm Emmanuel, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, and a sprinkling of far-out types like Kucinich (not that there's anything wrong with being "far out". I like the guy, but let us be honest with ourselves here.)
Just step back a few paces and look at that crowd and ask what could possibly hold them to one purpose. The only thing I can see is the desire to get re-elected.
Frankly, any party that courts the authoritarian's (AKA "Reagan Democrats") approval is not a party that I'm interested in supporting. I may vote for Democrats in November, but it will be because I despise the Republican candidates more. I won't be giving any money to the Democratic party, after this. I'm saving my money to donate to ActBlue and similar groups, who will target specific candidates and specific issues.
In this regard, it is worth noting that there are no serious allegations, as far as I know, that even the Bush Administration has abused the surveillance power (in the sense of using it for political spying or something of the sort).
There are certainly suspicions. The Bush administration was asking for illegal wiretaps before 9/11. Since they were not all that interested in terrorism before 9/11, what were they interested in? If the need was legitimate, why the refusal to get a warrant?
Furthermore, every investigation that might have revealed abuses has been stonewalled, with subpoenas ignored, or executive priviledge claimed. Given all this, how is it reasonable to assume that abuses did not take place?
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