Ones and Zeros

Unless you’ve just come out of a two-year case of amnesia you know. The world knows. America has repudiated the last eight years and elected Obama through a massive turnout and decisive electoral victory. In a gracious and conciliatory speech, Senator John McCain conceded last night. While he acted with dignity his crowd did not and booed Obama’s name before he stopped them.

President-Elect Obama gave his acceptance speech in Chicago at Grant Park last night after accepting calls from both Sen. McCain and President Bush. The President told the President-Elect, “What an awesome night for you”.

After eight years of the Bush administration, and years before of having a Governor Bush, my wife and I feel light. A weight has been lifted off of all of our shoulders. We all have regained the country of our ideals and are once again moving toward higher principles instead of away from our fears. We again have the American of our dreams and not of our nightmares.

As President-Elect Obama (I love typing that phrase) made most clear. This is not the end but the start of the work. We have two wars, an economy close to meltdown, and major environmental issues. None of this can or will be solved quickly. It’s taken us many years to create these problems and will take many to solve them. Those are posts for another day.

We now have the possibility of solving those problems. So today I am happy.

I’m for Obama. That’s probably obvious. After two years of campaigns, speeches, ads, mud, and fact checking I’m pretty sure anyone capable of making a decision has made one by now.

For the one or two people who haven’t, here’s a summary of my reasons for voting for Obama. First the reasons against McCain.

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I was tired last night so I confess I wasn’t paying much attention to the words that either McCain or Obama were saying. But, when I did pay attention those words were quite familiar. So I gather they were treading familiar ground. As this campaign’s been going on in one form or another for two years now I have a hard time understanding why there are still undecided voters.

What I did notice was McCain’s Turette’s Syndrome grimaces and blinks and weird smiles. It was like he wanted to blow his stack but was barely restraining himself. Or perhaps it was that he knew he was lying and the cognitive dissonance was showing through on his face. He’s smart enough to realized what he’s traded from his reputation for this shot at the Oval Office.

The staffers that told him to make sure he smiled probably regret that now. McCain’s “smile” was as unnatural as boots on a frog. It would have been better if he’d let his face be more honest even if that meant a scowl.

I’ve been following the FISA bill progress in the House and Senate. And I’ve been emailing my representatives. (It’s the only way to vote between elections after all!) A day or so before the Senate passed their version of the bill I emailed Senator Barack Obama. He’s said before he wouldn’t vote for it, but recently changed his tune due to some small changes in the bill.

I emailed this:

“Do not expect any more contributions from me or my wife. All our contributions will go to EFF and ACLU. Do not expect us to volunteer as we were planning. You blew it with your vote on FISA. You blew it for you and your country.

How can you - a constitutional scholar - vote for this bill? How can you - an intelligent and perceptive person who thinks carefully about things - vote with with the authoritarians in the GOP?

What happened to your legal training and your obvious intelligence here? What happened to the fourth amendment? What happened to your integrity?

I’ve never met you, I’m unlikely to meet you. All I know is what I see of your words and your actions. I thought your words and actions fit together. I now see you talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. In spite of your fine words you’re like all the other politicians after all.

I’ve voted in every election I’m eligible to vote for in the past. But I’m not sure I see the point in voting anymore. If you - the best and brightest the Dems can find - can support Bush’s FISA bill then what hope have we? What hope has the country?”

My first surprise is that I got a reply. (Senator Jim Webb has never sent me a reply despite numerous emails, not even an automatic “thanks for sending an email” repsonse.)

My second surprise was that the reply was actually related to what I wrote. (Rep. Frank Wolf always sends a reply to my emails. However, he sends it in paper mail, weeks later, and the reply never has anything to do with what I wrote. In short, a waste of effort on his staff’s part.)

The response is below, unedited. My comments are interspersed in italics:

“Dear Friend,

Thank you for contacting us and sharing your strong feelings about this important issue. Please find a statement from Senator Obama below.

We appreciate hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Obama for America,

—
Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.

It has been demonstrated that the “privacy and civil liberties” of Americans are not being honored. The original post-Nixon FISA bill did so with a remarkable degree of latitude for the government’s necessity of surveillance of potential enemies. Why not simply re-approve what worked?

That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.

He opposed it initially, but accepted it as a necessary condition in this case. I disagree with that tradeoff as it permits others in the future to figure they’ll be covered retroactively too.

After months of negotiation, the House passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year’s Protect America Act. Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President’s illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future.

This new FISA bill restores FISA in name only. The FISA court doesn’t have to be consulted for weeks after a wire tap. And, if the court disagrees that the tap was necessary, there’s no penalty or disallowing of the information gathered. And the administration can continue with the tap as well.

So, civil liberties are NOT protected, and no effective judicial oversight is established. This is nothing more than window dressing.

It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I voted in the Senate three times to remove this provision so that we could seek full accountability for past offenses. Unfortunately, these attempts were unsuccessful. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

One of the key problems in our political system is that is built on compromise. This works in many if not most cases. But, sometimes either reality or hard-line ethical considerations mean that compromise is not correct. There’s either a right or wrong solution. Global warming is one reality-based concern. Constitutional and civil liberty concerns like this one are another case.

It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people.

The most legitimate threat we face now is from our own government. It has more power to do harm that Al Queda does through the misuse and misapplication of its power. Al Queda will be gone in a generation or two. The precedences we put in place now will affect our grandchildren’s grandchildren as the Alien and Sedition and Posse Comitatus still have a concrete legal effect today.

Paid for by Obama for America”

Sen. Obama had to make a choice here. In the context of his ongoing shift to the middle, he made this choice in the wrong direction I believe. His oratory skills and clear intelligence driving them could have been a strong force for good here. I’m sorry he didn’t make that choice.