Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has switched positions from the primary campaign by endorsing the Bush Administration’s program of wiretapping and immunity of telecom providers from lawsuits for their participation. Some Obama supporters have suffered a chink in their programming as reported by the NY Times today. Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity (James Risen "Obama Voters Protest His Switch On Telecom Immunity" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/politics/02fisa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
Obama now supports the expansion of government powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (known as FISA). He supports the immunization of telecom companies for cooperating with the government. Perhaps his financial base has something to do with the latter. Take a look at David Brooks’s op-ed comparison of Obama and McCain contributors in yesterday’s NY TImes "Obama’s Money Class." Brooks reports that people in communications and electronics gave $10 million to Obama versus $2 million to McCain. I wonder….
Risen’s article reports that some Obamaniacs have been caught short by their candidate’s switch. This isn’t the first and won’t be the last, especially if he is elected.
Let me give a suggestion to the disgruntled Obama supporters. Help Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr www.bobbarr2008.com. You don’t have to vote for him, but sign the petitions to put Barr and other Libertarian Party www.lp.org candidates on the ballot, circulate the petitions yourself and give the national Libertarian party and its state affiliates money. If Barr isn’t in the debates with McCain and Obama no one will question FISA. Demand that Barr is included. You could even contribute to Barr’s campaign.
How does former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr stand on this issue? He rejects the expansion of wiretapping and immunization in very sharp terms. http://www.bobbarr2008.com/press-releases/29/bob-barr-urges-congress-no-surveillance-of-americans-without-fourth-amendment-protections/
Let us quote. "However, the bill being advanced by the Democratic leadership “would allow the government to listen to millions of phone calls by Americans with neither an individualized warrant nor an assessment of probable cause,” he adds. Although the law would offer some protection when a particular American was expressly targeted, even then “the proposed rules fall short of what the Fourth Amendment mandates.”
Moreover, the bill would immunize telephone companies from wrong-doing, protecting them against law suits even when the firms violated the law by helping the government conduct warrantless searches. Past cases would simply be dismissed. “Conservatives once said, ‘you do the crime, you do the time,’ but no longer,” observes Barr. Now virtually the entire Republican Party is prepared to sacrifice the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans in favor of federal government power."
Now that Obama sees the way clear to running the show he is becoming even more enamored of enhancing the powers of the federal government. His switch is no suprise. For real change, vote Bob Barr for president and Libertarian for everything else. -30-
Obama: The Same Old New Thing https://groundreport.com/articles.php?id=2858685
(About the author : Richard Cooper is the export/import manager of a Long Island manufacturer. He was the State Chair of the Libertarian Party of New York www.ny.lp.org and worked for Ron Paul in this year’s Republican primary, including running as a delegate candidate.)
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