Sen. Clinton’s Statement on Voting No on FISA

Photo credits: AP/Susan Walsh

Sen. Hillary Clinton showed outstanding leadership today as she voted no on the senate version of the FISA bill. Below is her statement (courtesy of Jeralyn at TalkLeft):

One of the great challenges before us as a nation is remaining steadfast in our fight against terrorism while preserving our commitment to the rule of law and individual liberty. As a senator from New York on September 11, I understand the importance of taking any and all necessary steps to protect our nation from those who would do us harm. I believe strongly that we must modernize our surveillance laws in order to provide intelligence professionals the tools needed to fight terrorism and make our country more secure. However, any surveillance program must contain safeguards to protect the rights of Americans against abuse, and to preserve clear lines of oversight and accountability over this administration. I applaud the efforts of my colleagues who negotiated this legislation, and I respect my colleagues who reached a different conclusion on today's vote. I do so because this is a difficult issue. Nonetheless, I could not vote for the legislation in its current form.

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The legislation would overhaul the law that governs the administration's surveillance activities. Some of the legislation's provisions place guidelines and restrictions on the operational details of the surveillance activities, others increase judicial and legislative oversight of those activities, and still others relate to immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the administration's surveillance activities.

While this legislation does strengthen oversight of the administration's surveillance activities over previous drafts, in many respects, the oversight in the bill continues to come up short. For instance, while the bill nominally calls for increased oversight by the FISA Court, its ability to serve as a meaningful check on the President's power is debatable. The clearest example of this is the limited power given to the FISA Court to review the government's targeting and minimization procedures.

But the legislation has other significant shortcomings. The legislation also makes no meaningful change to the immunity provisions. There is little disagreement that the legislation effectively grants retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies. In my judgment, immunity under these circumstances has the practical effect of shutting down a critical avenue for holding the administration accountable for its conduct. It is precisely why I have supported efforts in the Senate to strip the bill of these provisions, both today and during previous debates on this subject. Unfortunately, these efforts have been unsuccessful.

What is more, even as we considered this legislation, the administration refused to allow the overwhelming majority of Senators to examine the warrantless wiretapping program. This made it exceedingly difficult for those Senators who are not on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to assess the need for the operational details of the legislation, and whether greater protections are necessary. The same can be said for an assessment of the telecom immunity provisions. On an issue of such tremendous importance to our citizens – and in particular to New Yorkers – all Senators should have been entitled to receive briefings that would have enabled them to make an informed decision about the merits of this legislation. I cannot support this legislation when we know neither the nature of the surveillance activities authorized nor the role played by telecommunications companies granted immunity.

Congress must vigorously check and balance the president even in the face of dangerous enemies and at a time of war. That is what sets us apart. And that is what is vital to ensuring that any tool designed to protect us is used – and used within the law – for that purpose and that purpose alone. I believe my responsibility requires that I vote against this compromise, and I will continue to pursue reforms that will improve our ability to collect intelligence in our efforts to combat terror and to oversee that authority in Congress.

FISA Bill Passes: Clinton Votes No; Obama Votes Yes

Photo credits: AP

Glenn Greenwald reports on Salon minutes ago the results of today's Senate vote on FISA:

“The Democratic-led Congress this afternoon voted to put an end to the NSA spying scandal, as the Senate approved a bill -- approved last week by the House -- to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, terminate all pending lawsuits against them, and vest whole new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President. The vote in favor of the new FISA bill was 69-28. Barack Obama joined every Senate Republican (and every House Republican other than one) by voting in favor of it, while his now-vanquished primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, voted against it. The bill will now be sent to an extremely happy George Bush, who already announced that he enthusiastically supports it, and he will sign it into law very shortly.

“Prior to final approval, the Senate, in the morning, rejected three separate amendments which would have improved the bill but which the White House had threatened would have prompted a presidential veto. With those amendments defeated, the Senate then passed the same bill passed last week by the House, which means it is that bill, in unchanged form, that will be sent to the White House -- just as the White House demanded.”

Greenwald noted that on the cloture amendment:

“Obama voted along with all Republicans for cloture. Hillary Clinton voted with 25 other Democrats against cloture (strangely,Clinton originally voted AYE on cloture, and then changed her vote to NAY; I'm trying to find out what explains that).

On Obama’s betrayal, Greenwald points out:

“Obama's vote in favor of cloture, in particular, cemented the complete betrayal of the commitment he made back in October when seeking the Democratic nomination. Back then, Obama's spokesman -- in response to demands for a clear statement of Obama's views on the spying controversy after he had issued a vague and noncommittal statement -- issued this emphatic vow:

“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

Greenwald continues:

“But the bill today does include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. Nonetheless, Obama voted for cloture on the bill -- the exact opposition of supporting a filibuster -- and then voted for the bill itself. A more complete abandonment of a clear campaign promise is difficult of imagine. I wrote extensively about Obama's support for the FISA bill, and what it means, earlier today.”

To read Greenwald’s post in its entirety, go here. It’s well worth it.

More on Obama’s Sellout to the Right

Now here’s an admission we all need to hear; it’s from Stephen Ducat, posting at – of all places – the Huffington Post:

“OK, we all knew, deep down, that our wondrous golden boy of change would one day reveal his feet of clay. What most of us did not anticipate was just how easily they would fit into jackboots.”

In case you missed it, Ducat’s “golden boy” is Barack Obama, and there’s more to follow on the candidate recently transformed from “change you can believe in” to “whatever change it takes to win.” Here Ducat takes on conventional wisdom, the well-known enemy of progressive thought:

“There has emerged a conventional wisdom among progressives that is not entirely wrong about why Obama has so readily embraced police state surveillance, and why he felt compelled to express his solidarity with Scalia, et al, on the death penalty. As the thinking goes, these moves are simply the expectable, if disheartening, political positioning typical of Democratic presidential candidates, once they enter the general election campaign.”

Ducat continues with a likely GOP ad that would have attacked Obama had he not suddenly shifted to the right:

Low, rumbling, ominous music gradually increases in volume as a solemn voice that oozes manly gravitas announces, "Barack Obama voted against a bill to that would help our intelligence agencies detect terrorist plots against our nation before they can be carried out. Why does he want to protect the privacy of Al-Qaeda's phone calls more than he wants to protect Americans from Al-Qaeda? [Cut to an image of a World Trade Tower falling.] Barack Obama doesn't want the death penalty applied to criminals who sexually assault and brutalize little children. Why does he care more about child rapists [cut to image of a swarthy unshaven convict doing the perp walk] than he does about their victims? [Cut to an image of doe-eyed little blond girl with tears rolling down her apple cheeks, as she lies in an oversized hospital bed holding tightly to her teddy bear.] Barack Obama and his friends at the ACLU care about terrorists and rapists. Vote for John McCain. He cares about us." [As reassuring music swells, cut to an image of a younger looking, photo-shopped McCain in his crisp Naval officer's uniform. One arm is around a child, the other rising in a determined salute to the flag.]

Calling Obama out for his “limited ability to exercise moral leadership,” Ducat offers an alternative ad from the progressive perspective:

The 30-second ad opens on a scene in a middle class suburban kitchen. A mother is speaking on the phone. Her voice is muffled and is drowned out by an intermittent electronic beep, along with the sounds of someone frenetically striking a computer keyboard. The screen quickly splits in half to reveal the woman's nine-year-old daughter speaking by cell phone to inform her mother that she is ready to be picked up from the school bus stop. The screen is then split in thirds to reveal a man wearing headphones sitting in front of a computer typing notes, obviously monitoring the mother-daughter conversation. Behind him is a massive warehouse filled with computers and scurrying NSA technicians. This image then takes up the entire screen. The voiceover says, "Republicans, like George Bush and John McCain, have taken away our freedoms, invaded our private lives, and made us less safe." We then quickly see a succession of images -- a scene from Iraq that features a burning American tank, a scene of grenade launchers being placed into a packing crate, a scene of an unguarded American port where uninspected shipping containers are being off loaded, and finally a scene of a car with blacked out windows slowing down in front of an unsecured nuclear power plant. A window rolls down. A hand holding a camera reaches out to snap photos. Then the car speeds away. The voice over then concludes, "Protecting America means preserving our rights [cut to an image of the Constitution in which the camera scrolls down the Bill of Rights section], along with defeating terrorists." The last image is a scene of Barack Obama standing up and pointing toward a large map of some unidentifiable part of the world. Below him is a large conference table of twenty or so advisors who are listening with rapt attention.

So far so good, but then Ducat concludes: “In spite of his limitations, there is too much at stake to not work hard to make sure Barack Obama moves into the White House. And, once there, we must hold his clay feet to the fire.”

I repeat: Folks, we are not stuck with this obviously flawed candidate; the delegates still have to vote in Denver on August 27.

Keep Hillary Clinton’s name on the ballot!!

Note: To read Ducat’s article in its entirety, Google the title: Understanding Obama's Recent Right Turn+Ducat+Huffington Post (Sorry, I don’t link there).