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TechnoratiObama Quoted in Wiretap Lawsuit in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO - An Islamic charity challenging former President George W. Bush's wiretapping program in a San Francisco federal court cited candidate Barack Obama's words Thursday in arguing that a president has no power to unilaterally order eavesdropping on Americans.
![[Former President George W. Bush. An Islamic charity challenging former President George W. Bush's wiretapping program in a San Francisco federal court cited candidate Barack Obama's words Thursday in arguing that a president has no power to unilaterally order eavesdropping on Americans. (Susan Walsh / AP) ]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/bush-2.jpg "bush-2.jpg")
Lawyers for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation introduced their brief by quoting Obama's words in December 2007: "Warrantless surveillance of American citizens, in defiance of FISA, is unlawful and unconstitutional."
FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, requires the government to get a warrant from a court that meets in secret before intercepting messages between Americans and suspected foreign terrorists. Bush acknowledged in 2005 that he authorized such surveillance four years earlier and said he had constitutional authority to take such actions during wartime.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco has scheduled a hearing Sept. 1 on whether Al-Haramain has the right to sue the government and, if so, whether it was wiretapped unconstitutionally.
The government accidentally gave Al-Haramain a classified document in 2004 that reportedly showed that two of the organization's lawyers had been wiretapped before the Bush administration designated it as a terrorist group.
Al-Haramain returned the document at the government's request, but has argued that federal officials' public statements show it was the target of electronic surveillance - a critical fact in establishing its right to sue.
In Thursday's filing, the now-defunct charity said no president has the inherent power to order wiretapping.
This is the time, Al-Haramain's lawyers said, for Walker to answer the crucial question: "May the president of the United States break the law in the name of national security?"
27 Comments so far
Show Allthis man, bush,appears to have act as if his brain is fried by the use of hellucinating drugs paraphernilia, alcohol and other illicit drugs, otherwise he wouldn't have acted so irrationally by violating the us constitution or its ammendments.what is required now from the current president is to erase all executive decisions bush made, if he is to absolve himself from being in collusion with a sick minded bush.
Support and defend the constitution. Uphold the rule of law.
That was all rhetoric before he was ordained by the financial corporate elite to became the "official" leader of fascist America.
Apologies to the Platters, etc:
Oh yes, he's the great Reneger
(ooh ooh)
Pretending he's doing well (ooh ooh)
My need is such I pretend too much
He's populist but no one can tell
Oh yes he's the great Reneger (ooh ooh)
Adrift in a world that THEY own (ooh ooh)
I play the game but to my real shame
They've left us to twist one by one.
Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart
can't conceal
Ooh Ooh yes he's the great Reneger (ooh ooh)
Just laughing and shucking like a clown (ooh ooh)
He seemed to be what he's not (you see)
He's wearing his post like a crown
Pretending that we're not around
Yeah ooh hoo
Too real when I feel what my heart
can't conceal
Oh yes He's the great Reneger
Just laughing and shuckin' like a clown (ooh ooh)
He seemed to be what he's not you see
He's wearing his post like a crown
Pretending that your
Constitution's still around
George, has none of the old Republican guard suggested it's time for you to fall on your sword?
Obama supported telecom immunity...and Bush's FISA act on all Americans. Obama is a Fraud! Check out this article for I know Americans have short attention spans and little memory....
Obama's wiretapping stand enrages many supporters
By James Risen
July 2, 2008
WASHINGTON —
"Senator Barack Obama's decision to support legislation granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration's program of wiretapping without warrants has led to an intense backlash among some of his most ardent supporters....Thousands are now using the same grass-roots organizing tools previously mastered by the Obama campaign to organize a protest against his decision....In recent days, more than 7,000 Obama supporters have organized on a social networking site on Obama's own campaign Web site. They are calling on him to reverse his decision to endorse legislation supported by President George W. Bush to expand the government's domestic spying powers while also providing legal protection to the telecommunications companies that worked with the National Security Agency's domestic wiretapping program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States...."
""During the Democratic primary campaign, Obama vowed to fight such legislation to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. But he has switched positions and now supports a compromise hammered out between the White House and the Democratic congressional leadership. The bill is expected to come to a vote on the Senate floor on Tuesday.
The decision, one of a number made by Obama intended to position him toward the political center as the general election campaign heats up, has brought him into serious conflict for the first time with liberal bloggers and commentators and his young supporters...Many of them have seen the issue of granting immunity to the telecommunications companies as a test of principle in their opposition to Bush's surveillance program. "I don't think there has been another instance where, in meaningful numbers, his supporters have opposed him like this," said Glenn Greenwald, a writer for Salon.com who opposes Obama's new position...."
Read entire article @:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/world/americas/02iht-obama.1.14161755.html?scp=1&sq=Obama's%20wiretapping%20stand%20enrages%20many%20supporters&st=cse
Barack Obama IS a fraud. Nice article.
its always better to make someone else's head hurt. don't give up the fight. here's my motto its always better to be the ball buster then the ball bustee.
I guess I'm glad that all those folks who consistently pointed to Obama's money suppliers as exactly the same as backed 'The Great Decider' are not saying 'I told you so'!
Say what? Are you being sarcastic?
How exactly has a D president and D controlled Congress made a difference in foreign policy?
Has the Pentagon budget been reduced? Have the imperial wars and aggression ceased? Is Single Payer "on the table"? Is the prosecution of Bush/Cheney et al. "on the table"? Have the banksters keep their jobs, rewarded with billions in bonuses, taken trillions of public monies? Does Pres. Obama advocate "preventetive detention" and military commissions? Habaeas Corpus restored? Is EFCA going to be passed?
Please explain, as I am trying hard to see the big difference between the two factions of the Ruling Duopoly
I do not need the decision of a judge to know that it is illegal.
Watch how Obama will back-track on his statements to protect not only Bush but now himself....since he obviously doesn't mean anything he said on the campaign trail...he has gone back on his word on virtually everything that the left or progressives supported him on by voting for that fraud!!!
Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice....well you know...you can't get fooled again. NICE BUSH-LIKE COMMENT!
Golly, what would have been the repercussions of this if it had been, say, AIPAC that had been wiretapped.....
Gosh, the world would erupt in flames of horror and indignation.....
But an Islamic Charity? Fuckem, call in an air-strike on their offices.
Obama has already backtracked and is following Bush's "states secret" line of stonewalling. Holder when asked about the illegal wiretapping responded that he didn't know he would call it "illegal". He had been in favor of an investigation of the warrant-less surveillance program before he became Attorney General.
I guess Obama, like Bush, now believes if the president does it, then it's legal. Obama is the new Bush, and in 2012 we'll be electing our next Bush.
For the ever increasing numbers of stories and issues where Big O's and criminal Bush's actions and notions near total overlap and identity, the media can just picture one or the other interchangeably. As the recent Wall Street Journal lead editorial was titled approvingly: "Barack Hussein Bush". When will the rest of the country wake up from their Messiah complex?
courtjester July 10th, 2009 5:37 pm............"When will the rest of the country wake up from their Messiah complex?" .........When they become aware they have been mesmerized.
Ron Paul for President in 2012!
Not Obama = George W. Bush the Next.
We ALL Need to Get Together and Show the Status Quo we are tired of their Duopoly
We NEED to Vote Third Party - ALL OF US
Ron Paul
Cynthia McKinney
One
Big
Ass
Mistake
America
I love Ron Paul! As for Barack Obama, disappointment is an understatement. My first disappointment registered last summer when after many sleepless nights, my husband and I called and had our $500 campaign contribution refunded. The writing was on the wall at our house when he caved on FISA last July -- a YEAR AGO.
Barack O'Bush's blatant [now] false promises to:
- End war and bring troops home
- Denounce torture and close Guantanamo
- Restore habeus corpus and end extraordinary rendition
- Reinstate FISA court and work within the Constitution
- Not fill his administration with lobbyists and end the blatant conflict of interest
- And give the people something they can actually USE in exchange for their tax contributions for once; namely health care
...have proven that only Obama the candidate was a populist. Obama the president is a corporatist and a liar. And to think, all the reversals on these critical issues combined with his continuation of Bush and Paulsen's scheme to steal the now $12 trillion and counting, and he was STILL a better candidate than McPalin.
America ceased being a republic of the people decades and decades ago. Our parents were duped, our grandparents were duped, our great-grandparents were duped, THEIR parents were duped.. Every generation squeezed more than the last.
America is finished. Whatever theory was taught in our gradeschool civics courses exists now only in imagination. Puhhh-thetic.
Wow..cannot await the answer to that last question.
"Warrantless surveillance of American citizens, in defiance of FISA, is unlawful and unconstitutional."........Sure bet "Mr.Disappoinment" wished he never said those words, eh?
Just caught a new name for Obama off another article...."The Great Reneger"...Spread the word!
Keep up the good fight!
Don't you just love that cute Bush face? What will it look like doing that perp walk?
9/11 truth is on it's way!
'the great reneger'...........ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Three quick points:
1. The answer to the last question is the same answer it's always been: "Yes".
2. If past is prologue, the charmingly simian Mister Bush will never do the 'perp walk'.
3. Whatever actually happened on our 9/11 will never be fully known or believed.
Tirebiter July 10th, 2009 10:44 am And so, in regard to (1), you agree with the original Nixon Doctrine on this?
It's only my observation based on decades of government watching. I didn't and don't agree with Nixon's claim; but then again, my agreement isn't a necessity is it?
Tirebiter July 10th, 2009 10:44 am...........Never say die....Keep your sunny side up, up......la la la la la la....
Maybe I should change my name.
"Never say die..."
Why not?
Tirebiter July 10th, 2009 11:06 am....Personally, I see no fun in giving up. Much more fun to pound your head against the wall of power and indifference. After a while, the pain goes away. Then, you can look in the mirror and laugh hilariously at yourself.
Actually, I've been pounding my head against one wall or another for decades and have found that the pain never goes away; but I do find an occasional laugh in the increasingly inconsequential image I see in the mirror.
Tirebiter July 10th, 2009 1:45 pm............. We may as well laugh at ourselves...like much of the world.....the remainder are crying.