It’s been more than a year and a half now since Barack Obama voted in favor of the FISA Amendments Act, a law giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications corporations that broke their privacy agreements with millions of customers and shared huge amounts of personal information with George W. Bush’s White House. The FISA Amendments Act also legalized use of electronic surveillance technology against Americans without a search warrant and without any effective oversight.
Don’t worry about all that, Obama said. He promised that after he was elected President, he would reform the FISA Amendments Act, and the Patriot Act too. Promises were easy for Obama to make back then.
At the end of last month, the Democrats in Congress passed an extension of the Patriot Act without any reforms at all, and Barack Obama signed it into law. This week, Get FISA Right, a group of Democrats trying to pressure President Obama to reform the FISA Amendments Act as he promised to do, got in touch with staff on both the House and Senate judiciary committees, and asked when America might see a bill to reform the FISA Amendments Act. The contact person for Get FISA Right “was told to expect nothing legislatively until the next couple of months, if ever, before the election.”
In 2008, we were told that the FISA Amendments Act had to be passed, so that Democrats could win the election. Now, in 2010, we’re being told that the FISA Amendments Act cannot be reformed, because Democrats need to win the election.
If this is what Democrats do with their power, why should we work to help them win elections?
what am I thinking? I’m thinking I’m pretty disgusted. Can’t do ‘this’ because we have to get elected. Can’t do that because we have to get elected. Then when we’re faced with ‘not’ electing or ‘re-electing’ them (these Dems); faced with voting for ‘others’ (Republicans) knowing nothing will be done then either; well, I’m pretty disgusted. A democracy, eh? My ass! Actually, my ass is more democratic than many of our Congresspeople! Yep, disgusted.
This is the issue (when Obama was still a candidate) that stopped me from contributing any more to his election efforts. And it stops me from contributing to many other ‘democrats’, too. Blue Dogs? Yellow Dogs? Just DOGS! And they continue to treat us worse than dogs. Rights? My ass! Actually, my ass… oh, never mind.
Whatever are we to do?
Well, Garth, as far as I’m concerned, what we do is to NOT provide any donations to Democratic candidates until the Democratic Party gets its ass in gear and repeals the FISA Amendments Act and the Patriot Act We can send donations to groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation instead.