NYT: Dems should remind Obama of his campaign promises

NYT: Democrats in Congress should remind Obama of his campaign promises

By Muriel Kane
Friday, July 30th, 2010

Senator Pat Leahy promises hearings into White House request for expanded surveillance powers

News that the White House has asked for a "clarification" in current law which would make it easier for the FBI to obtain private email and web browsing records without a court order has run into strong opposition from the New York Times.

In a Thursday editorial, the paper firmly opposed the expanded use of warrantless "national security letters," which it points out have been widely used -- and often abused -- by both the FBI and the Pentagon.

"President Obama campaigned for office on an explicit promise to rein in these abuses," the Times notes, citing a 2008 position paper which promised that "as president, Barack Obama would revisit the Patriot Act to ensure that there is real and robust oversight of tools like National Security Letters, sneak-and-peek searches, and the use of the material witness provision."

"But instead of implementing reasonable civil liberties protections, like taking requests for e-mail surveillance before a judge," the editorial concludes, "the administration is proposing changes to the law that would allow huge numbers of new electronic communications to be examined with no judicial oversight. Democrats in Congress can remind Mr. Obama of his campaign promises by refusing this request."

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Link to full article: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0730/nyt-congress-remind-ob... /

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This isn't exactly the "Change" I was hoping for with an Obama administration.

If the big GOP Wurlitzer and the corporate media would turn down the white noise, we would even be heard. Well, guess it takes an election to get the message across...

He ain't listening!


mark

Spot on, that.

about that.

as to why they would unrec. If this happened under the Bush admin all of DU would be up in arms....yet with Obama, not so much. Come on unreccers, what gives? Why the double standard?

with these powers legal..and a democratic precedence...

Oh and PS..Jeb is no dummy like his brother was..I know ...he was Gov of my Great State of Fla! And brought you Kathrine Harris and stolen elections!

Except the war-related ones. He got elected and we got had.

he doesn't want to listen to anyone if they aren't a Republican or DLC. Anyone else is a "fuckin' retard" as Rahm would say. (He should have been fired for that remark).

I think cynical political calculations have more
To do with how this white house arrives
At anything it does.

and eloquently opposing it, the writing was on the wall. Say one thing, and say it very convincingly and then do something else. Seems to be becoming a pattern.

I remember the arguments, similar to the ones I'm seeing now, after that FISA vote. We were urged not to give up, that he was only doing what he had to do to 'get elected' and he would fix it once he got to DC. Some of us wanted to believe it. I actually didn't but what was the choice?

I have learned one thing though. Don't go by the words they speak, watch what they do and watch who is giving them money.

I cop to being one of those.

I had no illusions based on the record that we'd be in for a Clinton redux- but I had no idea that he'd not only wilfully fail to restore accountability under the rule of law to pre-Bush norms and even expand infringements of civil liberties.

Make one curious as to what his former students have to say about what's gone on.

here is Campaign Obama vs President Obama:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-15-2010/resp...