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Lorenzo's
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. . . about Chaos,
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FISA Is Only the Prelude to Nightmare
The selective focus on FISA misses the crucial larger picture in a way that ensures that the ruling class's hold on increasingly tyrannical power will never be consistently or seriously challenged -- which is, of course, precisely what the ruling class wants. . . . why in the world would Obama oppose the current FISA compromise bill? If it's done on Bush's watch, he doesn't have to worry about wasting political capital on it in the next year. Perhaps it gives a bit too much power to the executive. But he plans to be the executive, and he can institute internal checks within the Executive Branch that can keep it from violating civil liberties as he understands them. And not to put too fine a point on it, once he becomes president, he will likely see civil liberties issues from a different perspective anyway. . . . So, in short, from Obama's perspective, what's not to like? . . . Most Americans don't realize that the FISA compromise comes in two parts. The first part greatly alters FISA by expanding the executive's ability to wiretap and engage in much broader searches of communications than were permissible under the law before. It essentially gives congressional blessing to some but not all of what the executive was doing under President Bush. President Obama will like having Congress authorize these new powers. He'll like it just fine. People aren't paying as much attention to this part of the bill. But they should, because it will define the law of surveillance going forward. It is where your civil liberties will be defined for the next decade. . . . Part II, by contrast, is the part that everyone has gotten up in arms about. It creates effective immunity for telecom companies. It makes perfect sense for Obama to criticize this part of the bill. That's because he doesn't need it as much as he needs the first part, and his base really really dislikes it. . . .So, let's sum up: Congress gives the President new powers that Obama can use. Great. (This is change we can believe in). Obama doesn't have to expend any political capital to get these new powers. Also great. Finally, Obama can score points with his base by criticizing the retroactive immunity provisions, which is less important to him going forward than the new powers. Just dandy. . . . Moreover, understand the nature of the old FISA regime, which appears to be just fine with almost everyone, Republicans, Democrats, progressives, everyone. Steny Hoyer has helpfully spelled out the near-omnipotent powers of FISA under the old scheme. Understand how comprehensive it is, and how comprehensively it destroys civil liberties. Quite inexplicably, though, Hoyer declined to summarize the government's powers under the old FISA scheme in easily understandable, everyday language. So I helped him out: We can already spy on everyone. Everyone! Got that, you schmucks? And we don't even need a warrant a lot of the time! Every once in a while, we kinda think we should get a warrant. No reason for that actually. But it looks better, you know? Keeps the stupidly annoying civil liberties crowd happy. But those idiots at the FISA court will give us one nearly every time! [See here again.] And since FISA is a secret court, none of those peons (otherwise known as "citizens") will ever know a damned thing about what's actually going on anyway. It's good to be an Empire! . . . I repeat: that's the old scheme, which most people think is the bee's knees, a gentle zephyr cooling a moist brow, a benevolent moon keeping watch over a peaceful world below. . . . Beyond these points, there is another problem, one that is very difficult to convey, so terrible is it in its obliteration of liberty, privacy and all the values that our politicians claim to uphold. . . . Take a look at all the topics listed on EPIC's Privacy page. A huge number of links to investigate, such as the one on Counter-Terrorism Proposals. Still more links there. All of this goes on and on and on and on. In terms of surveillance and unending, relentlessly intrusive information-gathering on all Americans, I consider it impossible that the power does not already exist somewhere for the government to do basically whatever the hell it wants, whenever the hell it wants, to each and every one of us. . . . Note that I have not yet mentioned the government's vast capabilities for oversight, surveillance, control and punishment gained by means of its general, "everyday" massive taxing and regulatory powers, or by such liberty-destroying measures as a national ID card. If you conducted even a cursory search, I'm certain you would quickly come up with tens, hundreds and even thousands of further examples of government intrusion into areas of your life that you had erroneously believed were "private." . . . I do not find the least bit of enjoyment in breaking the news to you, but I suppose someone must. In terms of liberty and freedom, the right to be left alone is the most precious value of all. Regardless of what happens with FISA, and even if FISA were abolished altogether, you lost that right decades ago. . . . And if it is up to the ruling class, you are not getting it back.

posted by Lorenzo 8:14 PM