First, for Obama supporters, was the candidate’s decision to vote for the bill with language that supported immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the federal government and turned over private records.
Second, for a far broader group of people, was the immunity itself.
H/T to [folo.us](http://www.folo.us) for [getting me to these two columns](http://www.folo.us/2008/07/06/obama-and-nausea/):
1. Glenn Greenwald: [The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters](http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/05/monarchy/)
2. Nancy Soderberg: [A good-enough spy law](http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-soderberg5-2008jul05,0,5038346.story)
The folo.us post is more about disappointment with Obama, so I’m not focusing on it. The two columns, however, are important pieces.
It can best be summed up by what Greenwald wrote:
>I would really like to know where people like Soderberg get the idea that the U.S. President has the power to “order” private citizens to do anything, let alone to break the law, as even she admits happened here. I’m asking this literally: how did this warped and distinctly un-American mentality get implanted into our public discourse — that the President can give “orders” to private citizens that must be complied with? Soderberg views the President as a monarch — someone who can issue “orders” that must be obeyed, even when, as she acknowledges, the “orders” are illegal.
>
>That just isn’t how our country works and it never was. We don’t have a King who can order people to break the law. …
The answer to his rhetorical question — where people get the idea that the U.S. President has the power to “order” private citizens to do anything — is fairly simple.
We have devolved as a society to the point that if we like the president, then we don’t care much what he does. And in this case, we’ve devolved to the point that we are willing to sacrifice our civil liberties, our freedoms, our privacy all in the name of national defense.
President Bush is merely our father, protecting us children from the big, bad terrorists. Who are we to question what our father does?
The answer to that rhetorical question is easy as well: We’re Americans. It is in our national conscience to question our government. Never should we put our faith so much in a leader that we ever let them tell us what to do with our own liberty, much less question their motives when doing so.
I’ve heard the arguments:
- The telecommunications companies had to do what the president said.
- If you’re doing nothing wrong, then who cares if the government looks at your phone records?
- They’re not looking at _our_ records. They’re looking at _their_ records.
- If we want to be safe, we have to sacrifice.
- You damned liberals will ruin this nation!
OK. So the last point is a blanket response from any differing mind who has no rational argument. The first four, however, are purely revolting arguments. They are absent of thought, reason and — in my opinion — national pride.
__Telecommunication companies had no choice.__ Yes, they did. Had the federal government come asking for their R&D findings against competitors, a room full of corporate lawyers would have told Uncle Sam to stick it where the sun don’t shine. But this was in the name of national defense and hurt only the consumers, so who cares?
__If you’re doing nothing wrong…__ Since when did you have to be guilty of a crime to be indicted by the federal authorities? The Justice Department under the Bush Administration has already been proven to be a political arm of the Republican Party. Furthermore, the warrantless use of phone records is used to build a case against someone where no case exists. It’s not used to further a case where other evidence points to the phone records. If the latter existed, investigators would simply get a warrant and review the records.
__They’re not looking at _our_ records.__ Poor schmuck. You actually believe this?
__We have to sacrifice.__ Yes, we do. In the worst of times, we have to ration our food, our fuel and our natural resources. Our men and women must go to foreign soil and fight our enemies. But in the course of our nation’s history — and indeed in the birth of it — our civil liberties have been our most valued possession. Without the freedom upon which our nation is built, we have nothing for which to sacrifice. When we give our liberty to our government in any name — including and especially national defense — then we cease to be a free society.
Liberty and freedom are difficult ideas in that they are not readily tangible until they disappear. But we must study them, debate them and seek to defend them against any who would seek to take them. That includes our own government, who more times than foreign enemies seek to steal from us what our forefathers sought to guarantee.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I like the last paragraph, “Liberty and freedom are difficult ideas in that they are not readily tangible until they disappear. But we must study them, debate them and seek to defend them against any who would seek to take them. That includes our own government, who more times than foreign enemies seek to steal from us what our forefathers sought to guarantee.” I’ve been doing quite a bit of research surrounding the formation of the nation. What an amazing debate! Developing a national government strong enough not to buckle but weak enough that it wouldn’t encroach on the Rights of Man. Like the post.
Thanks, Eric. I’ve been reading a lot of history surrounding our nation’s birth, so I’m currently intrigued with the ideas that came from the debates of the late 18th century.
Past that, I find myself thinking more and more about the nation in which I want my two young children to live. I don’t want a nation that is weakened by weak-minded people who readily sacrifice their rights and liberties.
Such people would sorely disappoint our forefathers.