Even Barack voted in favor of it, reversing his original position on the matter. He did also vote for a Bill that would have denied immunity for telephone companies, however.
"The bill also effectively protects telephone companies from being sued for cooperating with a government surveillance program launched in the wake of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The White House pushed hard for the provision, with a threat to veto the bill if it did not contain protection for phone companies..."
So, if it's all legit and everyone they're tapping is proveably a threat to America, why do they have to incorporate immunity for the people doing it? And to be so supremely insistant. This is more than the old protect big business at the expense of the people song and dance. You don't cover your ass that emphatically unless you're doing something wrong. They insisted on protection because they're fairly sure they're going to be exposed somewhere down the line for abusing the power. And it's waaaayyyy too much power for the Government to have don't you think?
Read it and see:
"The bill, formally known as the FISA Amendments Act, updates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It will:
"Require the secret court set up to oversee FISA to review the surveillance of any targeted American whether the person is in the United States or abroad;
"Provide for the FISA court to sign off on procedures for removing the name of any American inadvertently captured in a communication with a foreign target;
"Prohibit reverse targeting, which is when intelligence officials eavesdrop on a foreigner's communications overseas as a means to spy on someone in the United States.
"Close a loophole by explicitly establishing the 1978 law as the exclusive means for authorizing electronic surveillance;
"Set up a procedure for federal judges to determine whether a telecommunications company can be sued for providing the intelligence community access to its networks without a court order."
Always beware when loopholes close.
From CNN
Thursday, July 10, 2008
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2 comments:
Some of obama's policies are not clear . The whole us want black american president . They are not seeing the real policies of obama .
Obama, for the record, is bi-racial. I think a great deal his appeal of Obama lies in the many ways he is not what we traditionally think of as an American president. He has done a good job, however, of manifesting what we would like to see in a president, particularly in these rather dubious times. However, as the race has gone on, he's falling further away from his original genuineness into more typical candidate behavior. It's impossible to please all of the people all of the time and that seems to be what he's doing to an extent. I do think that to a degree the press is slanting his positions, (big surprise). For example, the fact that he tempered his wiretapping vote somewhat with the vote to not allow immunity. But still...
Regardless, he'll do a hell of a lot better job than McCain.
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