and all these obama supporters wonder why people are so cynical. you have robert gibbs calling people who are against this stuff "the angry left" and saying they need to be drug tested - people who except obama to follow through on his campaign promises are "crazy"? it is sad to see the obama administration using the same tactics and rhetoric the neocons did under bush, and even worse that he is using it against his own base.
the people who are cynical unfortunately aren't cynical about this stuff. they are cynical about the BS conjured up controversy. the legitimate critique of obama has always been better from the intelligent left. krugman/stiglitz on his econ policies. aclu, et al, on his nat'l defense/civil rights. weiner/grayson/kucinich types on healthcare.
Please lord give me someone I actually want to vote for, please. I'm sick of what the TV campaigns and the "political donations" are giving me to choose from. I'm sick of voting against people .... one of these elections I really, truly want to vote for someone.
yes they are. they are very cynical over obamas positions on civil liberties. which is exactly what we are talking about... im am and have been very critical of his economic policies and positions on civil rights. but i didnt realize i was 'intelligent left' - thanks, i guess?
Courtesy of slashdot: The EFF has uncovered widespread violations stemming from FBI intelligence investigations from 2001 — 2008. In a report released today, EFF documents alarming trends in the Bureau's intelligence investigation practices, suggesting that FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed. Using documents obtained through EFF's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, the report finds: Evidence of delays of 2.5 years, on average, between the occurrence of a violation and its eventual reporting to the Intelligence Oversight Board; reports of serious misconduct by FBI agents including lying in declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas, and accessing password-protected files without a warrant; and indications that the FBI may have committed upwards of 40,000 possible intelligence violations in the 9 years since 9/11.
When an individual breaks the law 3 times?......Habitual Offender or 3 time loser When a small groups breaks the law 100 times?..... Gang or organized crime When a large group breaks the law 40,000 times?.....A government agency
I noticed that the report says from 2001 to 2008 prior to Obama taking office. Is there evidence that this type of FBI misconduct is continuing under the Obama Admin.?
I would submit this thread as evidence, along with Obama's plans to expand the program after his congressional allies voted to reauthorize* it. If you would like specifics, google has some evidence, although as the EFF report details the FOIA is...ummm...slow to work in these cases. Surprised? More to the point, if you think the FBI has changed it's methods to a more civil-liberties oriented position even though Obama has re-energized the program and his DOJ has repeatedly defended it in court...well...I've got some oceanside property in MN I'd like to sell you. This is hardly uncharted territory for the FBI after all... *There is a lot of good writing in this article, recommended reading.
There may be on going unethical and illegal behavior in the FBI but at the same time this thread is about the Obama admin and I would like to know if there is direct evidence that supports such behavior is still going on before I hold the current Admin responsible. I agree that the Obama admin's record regarding improving civil liberties is disappointing but what your post talked about was misconduct that is illegal even beyond the standards as established in both the last admin. and current Admin.. Given the severity of those I would like to see some proof that such behavior is still going and also sanctioned by the higher ups before blasting Obama for it. Frankly there is enough about the Obama Admin to blast them over, the formalization of the unwarranted wiretaps, without relying on speculation.
I never claimed that anything in the report was attributable or related to the Obama administration directly, just like I never claimed anything similar in this post. However, these programs have been continued, strengthened, and defended by the Obama administration. So, what I am claiming is that Obama is deliberately keeping and supporting these programs despite his promises during the campaign, and accordingly protecting the abusers and empowering the abuse to continue. There is no reason (other than naivety) to assume anything has changed since the abuses in this report occurred, and this thread supplies the evidence.
Obama is deliberately keeping programs that I agree violate our civil liberties and are Constitutionally questionable but that is a different matter than the blatantly illegal behavior (lying in court and using improper evidence) that was cited in the article. Your post seems to be lumping them together to say that since Obama has supported some programs then other such things are continuing to go on. They may but that is only speculative.
1) The Obama administration, in a secret ruling retroactively excused the FBI from any wrongdoing in these known cases from years prior. He and his administration are complicit in what you acknowledge to be illegal activity. 2) Of course I'm lumping them together. Obama is continuing illegal and easily abused programs. That's the premise of the whole ****ing thread.
We’re All Terrorists Now Posted by <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.cato.org/people/david-rittgers" title="View all posts by David Rittgers">David Rittgers</a></span> </p> The Tennessee ACLU sent a letter to public schools warning them not to celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. The Tennessee Fusion Center (H/T <a href="http://www.saysuncle.com/2011/01/31/we-are-all-terrorists-now/" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.saysuncle.com/2011/01/31/we-are-all-terrorists-now/']);">Uncle</a>) put the communication on its map of “<a href="http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/aclu-calls-anti-terrorism-agency-map-placement-disturbing" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/aclu-calls-anti-terrorism-agency-map-placement-disturbing']);">terrorism events and other suspicious activity</a>”:</p> <blockquote>“ACLU cautions Tennessee schools about observing ‘one religious holiday,’” the website’s explanation reads.</p> Also among the map’s highlights: “McMinn County Teen Brings Gun to School,” and “Turkish National Salih Acarbulut Indicted in Chattanooga for Alleged $12 million Ponzi Scheme.”</p> Mike Browning, a spokesman for the Fusion Center, said “that was a mistake” to label the ACLU letter as a suspicious activity. He said the Fusion Center meant to use the icon that means merely general information. The icon was changed after the ACLU sent its news release, he said.</p> “It’s still on the map,” Browning told The City Paper. “It has been reclassified into the general information category.”</p> But a look at the website shows there is no icon for general information. Instead, the icon for the ACLU letter now signifies “general terrorism news,” according to the website’s legend.</p></blockquote> This follows a long line of fusion center and DHS reports labeling broad swaths of the public as a threat to national security. The North Texas Fusion System <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&sqi=2&ved=0CCEQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Faclu-wa.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fattachments%2FNorth%2520Central%2520Texas%2520Fusion%2520System.pdf&rct=j&q=north%20texas%20fusion%20system%20bulletin%20aclu%20.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&sqi=2&ved=0CCEQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Faclu-wa.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fattachments%2FNorth%2520Central%2520Texas%2520Fusion%2520System.pdf&rct=j&q=north%20texas%20fusion%20system%20bulletin%20aclu%20.pdf']);">labeled Muslim lobbyists</a> as a potential threat; a DHS analyst in Wisconsin thought <a href="http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local_story.aspx?storyid=74787" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.13wmaz.com/news/local_story.aspx?storyid=74787']);">both pro- and anti-abortion activists</a> were worrisome; a Pennsylvania homeland security contractor watched <a href="http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/11/pennsylvania_homeland_security_1.html" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/11/pennsylvania_homeland_security_1.html']);">environmental activists, Tea Party groups, and a Second Amendment rally</a>; the Maryland State Police put <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/07/AR2008100703245.html" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/07/AR2008100703245.html']);">anti-death penalty and anti-war activists</a> in a federal terrorism database; a fusion center in Missouri thought that <a href="http://epic.org/miac-militia-2009.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','epic.org/miac-militia-2009.pdf']);">all third-party voters and Ron Paul supporters</a> were a threat; and the Department of Homeland Security described <a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf']);">half of the American political spectrum</a> as “right wing extremists.”</p> The ACLU fusion center <a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusioncenter_20071212.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusioncenter_20071212.pdf']);">report</a> and <a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusion_update_20080729.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusion_update_20080729.pdf']);">update</a> lay out some good background on these issues, and the <a href="http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/Spyfiles_2_0.pdf" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.aclu.org/files/assets/Spyfiles_2_0.pdf']);">Spyfiles report</a> describes how monitoring lawful dissent has become routine for police departments around the nation. Cato hosted Mike German, a former FBI counterterrorism agent and co-author of the ACLU fusion report at a forum on fusion centers, <a href="http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6218" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6218']);">available here</a>.</p> http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/we’re-all-terrorists-now/
I put this in the "I Hate Bush" topic but I guess it belongs here instead. Where is the fierce liberal indignation that we saw in 2003? Obama Takes Wrong Turn on Civil Liberties, Adopting Worse Patriot Act Stance Than GOP February 8, 2011 http://www.thenation.com/blog/15838...berties-adopting-worse-patriot-act-stance-gop The Patriot Act's surveillance authorities, long a source of concern for civil libertarians, are due to expire at the end of this month.. Instead of holding a serious debate about whether those authorities -- which constitutional scholars and activists have suggested are in conflict with privacy protections outlined in the 4th amendment to the founding document -- should be extended, the Obama White House and congressional leaders are rushing to extend them. That's troubling. Even more troubling is the fact that President Obama wants to extend the Patriot Act authorities -- which permit U.S. agents to conduct "roving surveillance" of communications, to collect and examine business records, and to target individuals who are not tied to terrorist groups for surveillance -- for far longer than do House Republicans. A new Statement of Administration Policy, issued Tuesday by the White House, argues that it "would strongly prefer enactment of reauthorizing legislation that would extend these authorities until December 2013." That stands in stark contrast to the proposal by House Republicans, which would only extend the surveillance authorities until the end of 2011. The White House claims the longer extension is needed to provide "certainty and predictability" for intelligence agencies. But the longer extension also reduces the level of scrutiny and accountability that comes with a shorter extension, something that Obama -- as a former constitutional law professor -- should know is needed when walking the fine line between national-security demands and the guarantees of privacy provided by the Constitution. The fact is that the surveillance authorities should not be extended in their current form -- for the shorter period of time proposed by House Republicans or the longer period proposed by the administration. The American Civil Liberties Union explained why in a letter sent In anticipation of this week's planned consideration of the issue by the House. Here's what the ACLU Washington Legislative Office director Laura Murphy and legal counsel Michelle Richardson wrote: "On behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, a non-partisan organization with over half a million members, countless additional activists and supporters, and 53 affiliates nationwide, we urge you to vote „NO‟ on H.R. 514, a bill that reauthorizes three expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) until December 8, 2011. This bill reauthorizes and extends these laws without making common sense amendments to protect Americans‟ privacy. Because of the importance of this vote to civil liberties principles, we will be scoring this vote. "The three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act and IRTPA give the government sweeping authority to spy on individuals inside the United States and, in some cases, without any suspicion of wrongdoing. All three should be allowed to expire if they are not amended to include privacy protections to protect personal information from government overreach. "Section 215 of the Patriot Act authorizes the government to obtain “any tangible thing” relevant to a terrorism investigation, even if there is no showing that the “thing” pertains to suspected terrorists or terrorist activities. This provision is contrary to traditional notions of search and seizure, which require the government to show reasonable suspicion or probable cause before undertaking an investigation that infringes upon a person‟s privacy. Congress must ensure that things collected with this power have a meaningful nexus to suspected terrorist activity or the provision should be allowed to expire. "Section 206 of the Patriot Act, also known as “roving John Doe wiretap” provision, permits the government to obtain intelligence surveillance orders that identify neither the person nor the facility to be tapped. This provision is contrary to traditional notions of search and seizure, which require government to state with particularity what it seeks to search or seize. Section 206 should be amended to mirror similar and longstanding criminal laws that permit roving wiretaps, but require the naming of a specific target. Otherwise, it should expire. "Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, or the so-called 'lone wolf' provision, permits secret intelligence surveillance of non-US persons who are not affiliated with a foreign organization. Such an authorization, granted only in secret courts, is subject to abuse and threatens our longtime understandings of the limits of the government‟s investigatory powers within the borders of the United States. According to government testimony, this provision has never been used and should be allowed to expire outright. "The bill also fails to amend other portions of the Patriot Act in dire need of reform, most notably those relating to the issuance and use of national security letters (NSLs). NSLs permit the government to obtain the communication, financial and credit records of anyone deemed relevant to a terrorism investigation even if that person is not suspected of unlawful behavior. Numerous Department of Justice Inspector General reports have confirmed that tens of thousands of these letters are issued every year and they are used to collect information on people two and three times removed from a terrorism suspect. NSLs also come with a nondisclosure requirement that precludes a court from determining whether the gag is necessary to protect national security. The NSL provisions should be amended so that they collect information only on suspected terrorists and the gag should be modified to permit meaningful court review for those who wish to challenge nondisclosure orders. "Instead of reauthorizing these provisions, Congress should conduct robust, public oversight of all surveillance tools and craft reforms that will better protect private communications from overbroad government surveillance. Because of the negative privacy implications of extending all of these laws, we strongly urge you to vote “no” on H.R. 514. We will track this vote and add its result to our Congressional scorecard." Opposition to the extension of the Patriot Act in its current form has developed in the House. We could see a renewal of the left-right coalitions that challenged the initial version of the legislation in 2001, when progressive Democrats such as Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold and libertarian Republicans such as Texas Congressman Ron Paul voted "no." Paul and his son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, are sending critical signals. Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, a longtime foe of the legislation, has written letter to colleagues -- especially Tea Party conservatives -- in which he notes that: "The 112th Congress began with a historic reading of the U.S. Constitution. Will anyone subscribe to the First and Fourth Amendments tomorrow when the PATRIOT Act is up for a vote? I am hopeful that members of the Tea Party who came to Congress to defend the Constitution will join me in challenging the reauthorization." “It is clear that more than eight years after the passage of the PATRIOT Act, Congress has failed to do its job: act as a co-equal branch of government exercising checks and balances over Presidential power. Who will and protect the American people from infringements on their most basic constitutional rights if Congress continues to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act?" continues the Kucinich letter, which concludes: “As Members of Congress, we are obligated to protect the rights and civil liberties afforded to us by the Constitution and to exercise our oversight powers fully. Despite years of documentation evidencing abuse of these provisions by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, they may extended without any meaningful debate or opportunity to implement common-sense reforms to ensure that the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans are fully protected. Our failure to do so makes Congress complicit in these violations of basic constitutional rights."
Legislation to extend certain Patriot Act programs was unable to get the two-thirds vote needed for passage as 26 Republicans voted no, including seven freshmen who are associated with the Tea Party. The Tea Party and civil liberties Wednesday, Feb 9, 2011 05:10 ET By Glenn Greenwald It's long been clear that the best (and perhaps only) political hope for civil liberties in the U.S. is an alliance that transcends the standard Democrat v. GOP or left v. right dichotomies. Last night's surprising (and temporary) failure of the House to extend some of the most controversial powers of the Patriot Act -- an extension jointly championed by the House GOP leadership and the Obama White House -- perfectly illustrates why this is true. The establishments of both political parties -- whether because of actual conviction or political calculation -- are equally devoted to the National Security State, the Surveillance State, and the endless erosion of core liberties they entail. Partisan devotees of each party generally pretend to care about such liberties only when the other party is in power -- because screaming about abuses of power confers political advantage and enables demonization of the President -- but they quickly ignore or even justify the destruction of those liberties when their own party wields power. Hence, Democratic loyalists spent years screeching that Bush was "shredding the Constitution" for supporting policies which Barack Obama now enthusiastically supports, while right-wing stalwarts -- who spent years cheering on every Bush-led assault on basic Constitutional limits in the name of Terrorism -- flamboyantly read from the Constitution during the Obama era as though they venerate that document as sacred. The war on civil liberties in the U.S. is a fully bipartisan endeavor, and no effective opposition is possible through fealty to either of the two parties. For most civil liberties incursions over the last decade, there's been at least some glimmer of opposition on the Left -- exemplified by people like Russ Feingold in the Senate and the Congressional Black Caucus and Dennis Kucinich in the House. But they've been easily overwhelmed by the civil-liberties-hating mainstream of the Democratic Party, and particularly hampered by the lack of any meaningful partners on the Right (where Ron Paul has been a solitary voice on such matters). What has been most needed -- and most harmfully non-existent -- is some minimal amount of intellectual honesty and consistency from America's conservatives, whose rhetoric of "limited government" and "individual rights" has translated into nothing other than lockstep support for ever-increasing government power and a highly authoritarian political mindset. It is that dynamic that has marginalized civil liberties advocacy -- and rendered civil liberties erosions inevitable -- no matter which party is in control. There are so many examples proving how true that is, but just look at the current "controversy" over extension of these Patriot Act provisions. The three provisions set to expire -- the "roving" wiretaps, the authority to surveill individuals with no connection to Terrorist groups (the "lone wolf" provision), and the power to obtain "any tangible items" (the "library records" power) -- have a long history of serious abuse. These provisions were supposed to be temporary, emergency measures hastily enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attack with virtually no oversight. Even the Congress acting in the immediate aftermath of those attacks realized how extreme they were, and thus imposed "sunset provisions" requiring their expiration and renewal after several years. But every time they've been considered in the past 10 years, they've been extended with the full support of both parties, without any added oversight provisions or limits; not even incontrovertible evidence of systematic abuse has generated any meaningful opposition. This has been just as true in the GOP Congress and the Democratic Congress, and with both Bush and Obama in the White House. Yesterday, on the very same day that the Obama White House demanded that Egypt repeal its 30-year-old "emergency law," it also demanded enactment of the House GOP's proposal to extend America's own emergency law -- the Patriot Act -- for three more years with no new oversight (the White House actually wants a longer extension than the House GOP is willing to support). Meanwhile, in the Senate, Pat Leahy has introduced a bill to impose some very mild and inadequate safeguards on these Patriot Act powers (some of which the DOJ has voluntarily accepted), but those efforts are being thwarted by the Democrats' Senate Intelligence Committee Chair, Dianne Feinstein -- easily one of the most implacable enemies of civil liberties in the Congress and one of the most loyal servants of the National Security State which enriches her husband; just as she did last year, Feinstein has demanded a full extension of the Patriot Act with no reforms of any kind. Put another way, the reform-free extension of the Bush-era Patriot Act is jointly assured by the most important Democratic power brokers (the Obama White House and Feinstein) and the Congressional GOP leadership. That's the same bipartisan dynamic that has repeated itself over and over for the last decade as civil liberties in the U.S. have steadily eroded. But what happened last night highlights the potential to subvert the two-party stranglehold on these issues -- through a left-right alliance that opposes the Washington insiders who rule both parties. So confident was the House GOP leadership in commanding bipartisan support that they put the Patriot Act extension up for a vote using a fast-track procedure that prohibits debate and amendments and, in return, requires 2/3 approval. But 26 of the most conservative Republicans -- including several of the newly elected "Tea Party" members -- joined the majority of Democratic House members in voting against the extension, and it thus fell 7 votes short. These conservative members opposed extension on the ground that more time was needed to understand whether added safeguards and oversight are needed. The significance of this event shouldn't be overstated. The proposed Patriot Act extension still commanded support from a significant majority of the House (277-148), and will easily pass once the GOP leadership brings up the bill for a vote again in a few weeks using the standard procedure that requires only majority approval. The vast majority of GOP members, including the leading Tea Party representatives, voted for it. The Senate will easily pass it. And the scope of the disagreement even among the Democrats opposing it is very narrow; even most of the "no" votes favor extending these provisions, albeit with the types of tepid safeguards proposed by Leahy. So in one sense, what happened last night -- as is true for most political "victories" -- was purely symbolic. The White House will get what it wants. But while it shouldn't be overstated, there is a real significance here that also shouldn't be overlooked. Rachel Maddow last night pointed out that there is a split on the Right -- at least a rhetorical one -- between what she called "authoritarian conservatives" and "libertarian conservatives." At some point, the dogmatic emphasis on limited state power, not trusting the Federal Government, and individual liberties -- all staples of right-wing political propaganda, especially Tea Party sloganeering -- has to conflict with things like oversight-free federal domestic surveillance, limitless government detention powers, and impenetrable secrecy (to say nothing of exploiting state power to advance culture war aims). Not even our political culture can sustain contradictions as egregious as (a) reading reverently from the Constitution and venerating limits on federal power, and then (b) voting to vest the Federal Government with extraordinary powers of oversight-free surveillance aimed at the American people. This was the contradiction which Dennis Kucinich smartly exploited when challenging the Tea Party to join him in opposing the Patriot Act's extension: The 112th Congress began with a historic reading of the U.S. Constitution. Will anyone subscribe to the First and Fourth Amendments tomorrow when the PATRIOT Act is up for a vote? I am hopeful that members of the Tea Party who came to Congress to defend the Constitution will join me in challenging the reauthorization. There is precedent for this type of alliance on this and other issues. Early on in the Bush years, a bill to repeal Patriot Act abuses was co-sponsored by Kucinich and Ron Paul, and supported by the ACLU. A bill to audit the Federal Reserve was opposed by most of official Washington but enacted by a left-right alliance. Some of the earliest and most outspoken opposition to Bush civil liberties radicalism -- and the war in Iraq -- came jointly from the Left and from the Cato Institute. Religious Right groups scared of federal government oppression have long joined with the ACLU and others in opposing some civil liberties incursions, such as the Patriot Act. Controversy over things like TSA patdowns and the corrupt way the Wall Street bailout was manufactured came from both the Right and the Left. The fact that it's Tea Party Sen. Rand Paul willing to question the value of American financial and military assistance to other nations (including to Israel) -- while Democrats attack him for that brave position -- further underscores the potential here. And in other nations -- such as Britian -- one finds a genuine left-right alliance against the political establishment's relentless assaults on civil liberties. Both liberal and conservative ideology can and should sustain popular opposition to ongoing reductions in civil liberties. It's the political establishment -- regardless of the party to which it belongs -- that is incentivized to seize always-greater levels of power in the name of Security. So many (though not all) of our most consequential political disputes are far more about insider v. outsider than they are Democrat v. GOP: a simplistic dichotomy used to keep the populace divided over trivial disputes and thus too fractured to resist the corruption and repression of the bipartisan ruling class. That's why I've long written and spoken about the need for such an alliance as a bulwark against further civil liberties abuses (for the crux of my argument, see the third question and answer in my 2010 interview with The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf). Despite my belief that such an alliance is both tenable and necessary -- and last night's Patriot Act vote underscores that fact -- I'm ultimately quite pessimistic about its ability to produce any meaningful benefits in the near future. That's because there are far too many impulses among ostensibly "limited government" conservatives which conflict with -- and ultimately negate -- any possibility for meaningful civil liberties defenses. In those rare cases when there has been real opposition on the Right, it has been grounded in a fear that they will be subjected to the abuses they oppose. Christian groups were petrified that Patriot Act powers would be used by federal officials to disrupt their religious liberty. Anger over TSA patdowns occurred on the Right only because good white Christian Americans (rather than dark American Muslims) were being inconvenienced. And the newfound right-wing concern for the Constitution stems from the belief that Obama (unlike Bush) will use the Executive Branch's ability to transgress Constitutional limits in a way that harms conservatives. It's very self-interested -- and unprincipled -- advocacy: they suddenly discover their distrust of government power and belief in liberty only when they perceive that their own interests are endangered. That's better than never discovering it -- indeed, the Democrats' failure to meaningfully oppose Bush's seizure of radical power, even if only on self-interested grounds, will redound to their eternal shame -- but such erratic interest in civil liberties makes for a very unreliable and ultimately counter-productive alliance. Worse, other impulses in that movement render support for civil liberties abuses inevitable as long as they're directed at other people. The nativism, the anti-Muslim bigotry, the blinding American exceptionalism, the fear-based eagerness to support anything in the name of Security, and the instinctive reverence for GOP political authority all ensure widespread support among the Right -- even those factions incessantly marching under the banner of "limited government" -- for the vast majority of authoritarian assaults on civil liberties. There has been some principled, strong opposition among some libertarian and "paleoconservative" factions on the Right, but those factions are far too small to make much of a difference. For the vast majority of American conservatives -- including the self-proclaimed limited government Tea Party movement -- the instincts that generate support for authoritarian policies easily overwhelm the instincts against it. Last night's unexpected Patriot Act vote illustrates the tantalizing promise of such an alliance. Things would be vastly improved on the civil liberties front if the American Right was even minimally faithful to the political principles they claim to support. But the nature of that movement means that last night's vote is far more of an isolated aberration than anything likely to change the bipartisan dynamic in a positive way. Indeed, the very weak status of civil liberties in the U.S. is compellingly illustrated by the fact that an alliance with this deeply unprincipled and authoritarian movement is one of the few viable means for stemming the tide of the erosion. http://www.salon.com/news/tea_parties/?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/02/09/tea_party
Thank goodness enough Republicans joined with the Democrats to vote against this thing. Unexpected but a positive sign.
