FISA

[JG]

I agree that FISA and other civil rights issues must be addressed. I
am not sure of the timing, but I might be convinced to begin the
campaign sooner than later.

[kbe...@peoplepc.com]

Me too! KB

[Lane]

We have waited a long time with our rights having been revoked. This has to be addressed immediately and the Obama administration needs to understand that we will not go away empty-handed, when we came for what is rightfully ours.   --- On Sat, 11/15/08, kbe...@peoplepc.com <kbe...@peoplepc.com> wrote:

[Charles Sawyer]

Obama and his administration has to address these issues in his first
term in office. If they don't they will have proven with his earlier
vote to aprove the FISA Bill, they can not be trusted any better than
anyone else. What has happened to the republican party with people
stop believing in them, will happen to the democrat party with Obama
if they don't. The only reason many of us voted for him and ot a
third party as originally plained in many cases, was because Palin
scared us when we listen to her. Democratic can only hope that the
republican party choses Palin in 2012 to run against Obama for his
second term. If they were to chose a more moderate republican again
but that person choses better for a VP, it could be a third party vote
back for many of us if nothing is down by Obama's administration on
FISA and the Patriot Act.

Charles

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[Laura Schneider]

Do you honestly have to wait for more proof that Obama can't be trusted.
His FISA vote, his flip-flop on off-shore drilling, his back-pedaling on tax
breaks (can't afford them in this economy), his back-pedaling on getting out
of Iraq within his original time limit (now it depends on "facts on the
ground" -- just like GWB). More of the same. The hopey-changey rhetoric
was just that -- rhetoric.

[Laura Schneider]

Don’t hold your breath.  No president is likely to GIVE UP power without being forced to.  He will rationalize to himself that he won’t use it unless he absolutely has to, etc.  And what conditions would justify that?  It is a slippery slope that ends with us going over the cliff and going splat at the bottom of the canyon.

 

No president has or ever will give up power unless he has to.  He now has this power.  He voted knowing he could (or maybe even would) win the presidency and have use of that power.  He told us he would not vote for it, but he did. 

 

Power won out over our rights this past summer, and it will after January 20^th as well.

 

Don’t hold your breath….

 

---

From: GetFISArigh...@googlegroups.com [mailto:GetFISArigh...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lane
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 10:43 AM
To: GetFISArigh...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [GFR-Discussion] Re: FISA

 

We have waited a long time with our rights having been revoked. This has to be addressed immediately and the Obama administration needs to understand that we will not go away empty-handed, when we came for what is rightfully ours.

[Charles Sawyer]

I agree with you Luara, but what was the option here? Putting someone
like Palin in the path for the Presidency was to important to stop,
which was Obama's luckiest day when McCain had chosen her! If he had
chosen anyone of many others, many of us or at least I would of went
ahead of voted third party. I believe many others would of as well
from his grass roots here in Iowa, if it hadn't been for Palin. So
McCain could of been President, if Palin wasn't his choose.

If he doesn't do work on it, we will just have to wait and see, but he
could lose our support in his run for a second term. This all depends
on who is picked by the republicans to run against him as well. The
right feels that they lost because of McCain's to moderate, and a more
conservative person would of won, which they are wrong, although they
could be correct, as according to stats, many conservatives stayed
home and didn't vote because they didn't like McCain. If they would
of voted, the vote would of been much closer and it was real close in
many states Obama won that he turned blue.

If Obama does nothing, and the moderate democrats and independents do
what the conservatives did this election, in the next, Obama could
lose a re-election bid very easy. Many of the young new voters could
also become disillusioned with the system in four years as well. Many
of the young people that will be able to vote in four years will have
enough time to listen and really wonder what their vote counts for if
he does nothing he promised.

Charles

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[Lane]

Thanks Charles, for your intelligent post. I too would have voted independent and planed to till Sarah Palin got involved. That decided it for me.( when the hair stands up on the back of your neck you pay attention. I´m sure Laura feels something like that with Obama. It´s a quandary. We only have today, lets go from here and see if O voluntarily does the best for Civil Liberties, or what kind of pressure we can drum up together. Lets get to work, you youngsters, you oldsters, you middle agesters. Somebody lead and lets go. Lets put our differences behind us and go for some FREEDOM!     --- On Mon, 11/17/08, Charles Sawyer <casa...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Charles Sawyer <casa...@gmail.com> Subject: [GFR-Discussion] Re: FISA To: GetFISArigh...@googlegroups.com

[Patrick Bruckart]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 12:24 AM, Laura Schneider <laura.s...@mchsi.com> wrote:

Don't hold your breath.  No president is likely to GIVE UP power without being forced to.  He will rationalize to himself that he won't use it unless he absolutely has to, etc.  And what conditions would justify that?  It is a slippery slope that ends with us going over the cliff and going splat at the bottom of the canyon.

--

I agree to an extent. I believe the best way to ensure that Obama and future presidents respect the Bill of Rights is to hold Bush accountable, in the courts, for his abuses of power. I am particularly interested in Jewel v. NSA, but I'm not certain how viable it is.

http://www.eff.org/cases/jewel (Jewel v. NSA)

http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/jewel/jewel.complaint.pdf (Full complaint)

On a slightly more optimistic note, a columnist in The Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch wrote a good column before the election: "Our Next President Is Sure to Improve on This Record." http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/search.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-10-31-0006.html

"SO IT MIGHT be a good thing that the next president will be a former senator. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain seems likely to use signing statements as a means of simultaneously signing and subverting congressional legislation. Nor does either of them seem inclined to continue the administration's habit of using the fight against terrorism as a pretext for expanding executive power. (Though they will almost certainly find other pretexts elsewhere.)"

Also, a recent Times-Dispatch news article pointed up some potentially exciting news about the composition of the (very conservative) US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond Virginia: http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news/politics.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-11-10-0141.html (4th Circuit Court could be reshaped. Obama's picks could swing the court to one with a majority named by Democratic presidents).

One of the primary reasons I voted for Obama was the likelihood that he would appoint more liberal judges than McCain (a self-described federalist). I hope this will hold true for the federal courts and the Supreme Court.

Beyond this I believe that people and civil liberties groups should do all they can to aggressively litigate civil liberties issues, especially the abuses of the Bush administration. If nothing else, civil libertarians make up a constituency within the Democratic Party and among Obama supporters, so I'm grateful that you folks are here trying to make our voices heard. I also think this might be a ripe time for open dialogue and public education on the Constitution and civil liberties (along the lines of changing hearts and minds that have been overly influenced by the political right on these issues). 

Patrick Bruckart
Richmond, VA

[Jon Pincus]

I took a stab at summarizing the discussion to date (here and on the
message board) at http://get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com/page/Now+what%3F