In light of your recent lack of interest in the FISA bill am requesting a refund of all donations I made to you during the primary season. Let me be clear that I am not just requesting this refund because you voted for one of the worst pieces of legislation in history today. I am requesting a refund because of that coupled with how you dealt with the entire process. First of all I found it deeply insulting that you approached the GetFISARight group in an antagonistic way – that you saw it only as “agree with me, or if you have to quit supporting me then so be it”. There were so many ways you could have approached the group; the most obvious would have been to embrace its energy as an affirmation of your purported theme which is this election is about “us”. You could have called on and worked with the group to fight immunity, which you supposedly opposed. You also could have made a speech on the floor yesterday, you certainly were able to make it to DC in time for a fundraiser for Jay Rockefeller yesterday. I was even more troubled by your misleading and false statements in your letter to the group. Your advisers and You and all of us know that this bill undercuts oversight. It kills the one chance we had to learn about this illegal program. And there is no chance an investigative report is ever going to be produced that shows anything about this. And we certainly know Mr.Bush will be making pardons to ensure any criminal prosecution is impossible. And you backed up these false statements with fear mongering, fear mongering you have denounced in this campaign. Mr.Obama, you’ve not only failed to live up to your campaign promise, you’ve lied to some of your most dedicated supporters as well as the American public, and you are not even elected yet.
I have no doubt you will win this election, and I will still vote for you. But I will do so begrudgingly, like a cornered mouse. I hope you will reflect on what you have done to your campaign and your forthcoming presidency. You’ve squashed those who had real enthusiasm for your campaign and made them to feel like hostages to a “lesser of two evils” system yet again. This is the true shame of your actions this week and it is something you will have to live with. Now you are not anything new, you are not John F Kennedy, you are certainly not Martin Luther King. You have thrown away your greatest asset – your character – and now you are like the rest, better than some, worse than others. In the coming year I hope you can do some good for this country, but its clear that those like I fighting hardest for change will have to put most of their energy elsewhere, you sadly can not be counted on. A dream died today sir.
this will be crossposted to myBO as soon as their crappy website comes back online.
Here is the official statement from Obama as appeared on the campaign site. In addition to this statement campaign people have answered questions in the comments – it would be good to pull those out and analyze.
SOURCE
Barack is on the road today, but he wrote a response that he asked be posted on the blog. You’ll find it below.
In addition, for the next 30 minutes or so, three members of our policy staff will be in the comments on this post to respond to any questions you have. Danielle Gray is our Deputy National Policy Director, Denis McDonough is a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, and Ben Rhodes is Foreign Policy Advisor and Senior Speechwriter.
I hope that you’ll join the discussion in the comments thread below, and continue to use the My.BarackObama.com tools as a resource for organizing in your local communities and around the issues that are important to you and to victory in November.
Here’s the note from Barack:
I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to those of you who oppose my decision to support the FISA compromise.
This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn’t have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush’s abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That’s why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.
But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any President or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court. In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited. As I’ve said many times, an independent monitor must watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people. This compromise law assures that the FISA court has that responsibility
The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted. It will allow a close look at past misconduct without hurdles that would exist in federal court because of classification issues. The (PDF)recent investigation uncovering the illegal politicization of Justice Department hiring sets a strong example of the accountability that can come from a tough and thorough IG report.
The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I’m persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe — particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer. Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I’ve chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention — once I’m sworn in as President — to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.
Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the current bill, and I’m happy to take my lumps on this side and elsewhere. For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions. No tool has been more important in focusing peoples’ attention on the abuses of executive power in this Administration than the active and sustained engagement of American citizens. That holds true — not just on wiretapping, but on a range of issues where Washington has let the American people down.
I learned long ago, when working as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, that when citizens join their voices together, they can hold their leaders accountable. I’m not exempt from that. I’m certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too. I cannot promise to agree with you on every issue. But I do promise to listen to your concerns, take them seriously, and seek to earn your ongoing support to change the country. That is why we have built the largest grassroots campaign in the history of presidential politics, and that is the kind of White House that I intend to run as President of the United States — a White House that takes the Constitution seriously, conducts the peoples’ business out in the open, welcomes and listens to dissenting views, and asks you to play your part in shaping our country’s destiny.
Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That’s ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have. After all, the choice in this election could not be clearer. Whether it is the economy, foreign policy, or the Supreme Court, my opponent has embraced the failed course of the last eight years, while I want to take this country in a new direction. Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change. But if we come together, we have an historic opportunity to chart a new course, a better course.
So I appreciate the feedback through my.barackobama.com, and I look forward to continuing the conversation in the months and years to come. Together, we have a lot of work to do.
Was just thinking again about this McCain linking project and thought… hmmm… why make it such a hassle for everyone, when the big community sites could do it all automatically.
OL, Kos, whatever, should each invest in a plugin to their blog post parsers which would automagically grab every instance of McCain in page text and comments etc, and wrap them with the target links. The parser could also look to see if there is already a link around it and exclude those. Then none of us would have to write link tags – we just put McCain in text and it gets linked. This isn’t that hard if there site engines are already sanitizing text.
If these sites are crazy enough not to sanitize html before delivering it to the browser, they could introduce a parser specifically for this. Also not that hard. Especially for a site like Kos which has sizable revenue it would be a small investment. It would also be reusable for other such projects.
Sprint, Time Warner, and Verizon have agreed to block websites and newsgroups blacklisted as allegedly containing child pornography. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo won the concession from the Internet Service Providers after threatening them with fraud charges. The agreement is raising many valid concerns among civil rights and free press groups. The first is that the list of sites to be blocked is to be maintained by the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a Non-Governmental Organization with no legal requirement for transparency. The other is that this may bust open the door to other kinds of access restriction.
Via Slashdot.org, Lauren Weinstein observes that other groups and government agencies may begin demanding other forms of censorship:
Of broader interest perhaps is how much time will pass before “other entities” demand that ISPs (attempt) to block access to other materials that one group or another feels subscribers should not be permitted to see or hear. How long before search engines are urged, pressured, or ordered to remove search result listings that the government or other groups deem inappropriate under the political criteria of the moment?
Among things that come to mind may be truecrypt.org and wikileaks.org, key tools of corporate and government watch dogs; wikileaks has been notably embarrassing to several companies and governments.
There’s More…
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The NYPD says an “improvised explosive device” blew up at around 3:43 a.m. last night at the Army Recruiting Station in Times Square, NYC. The blast blew a hole through the front door of the recruiting station. Subways and traffic are now running normally through Times Square. More at the NYTimes.
Hillary Clinton has been talking terrorism tough, asking who do you want to have in the White House when there is a crisis at 3am? Last night a small explosive went off at the Arm Recruiting Station in Times Square.
