Obama votes against 4th Amendment

[Griff]

Crap.

The Democratic Congress passed and Bush signed the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008," legalizing the president's longstanding illegal wiretapping program. The law allows broad warrantless surveillance of Americans in the United States, so long as the call or e-mail is thought to be international. Eavesdropping on domestic communications is legal for a week before court papers even have to be filed. The telecom companies that cooperated with Bush are immune from civil lawsuits. Most important, the administration's illegal conduct has been retroactively approved and future administrations have wider powers than ever to spy on Americans.

Anybody want my vote?

[Troubleshooter]

What?

You're surprised?

[Griff]

No. Not really. I'd have just prefered to wear the blinders and bitch about him after the election. Seeing both parties clearly join Al Queda is just depressing.

[xoxoxoBruce]

He's been flip-flopping on several stands he took during the primaries.
Bottom line, he's just another politician.

[Radar]

I'd hardly bring up flip-flopping when McCain is still in the race. He's flip-flopped more than Obama, both Clintons, and Kerry combined.

I think the Democrats realized if they got rid of the ability for the government to illegally spy on us, it would mean the Democrats couldn't use that power themselves.

Never ever ever be surprised when Republicans or Democrats vote to increase governmental power and infringe on our rights.

[SamIam]

Never be surprised when POLITICIANS of any stripe "vote to increase governmental power and infringe on our rights."

Its still depressing news, however. I wish for once somebody would put up a candidate I could have a small degree of faith in, but the political process seems too far gone for that.

[Radar]

I would be surprised if any libertarian politician voted to increase governmental power or infringe on our rights. Actually, I take that back. I've seen plenty of people claim to be libertarians when they are not. No actual libertarian would do either of those things.

[glatt]

I'd be curious to know why he did this. It's not going to win him any votes from anybody. [/disillusioned]

[xoxoxoBruce]

If both candidates support the same thing, it doesn't hurt/help either one.

[Undertoad]

I'd be curious to know why he did this.

Perhaps he knows he will be held responsible if he is President and there is another major attack.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Perhaps he knows he will be held responsible if he is President and there is another major attack.

A major attack would have nothing to do with the government's ability to violate the Constitution and our privacy rights. Spying on Americans is treason regardless of whom they are talking to. The government should have to provide a judge with probable cause to obtain a warrant to search someone and they should have to have a different warrant for each thing they want to search....email...phone...etc.

It's a gross violation to search everyone hoping to catch criminals. For instance, setting up roadblocks to find drunks is absolutely a violation of the Constitution and civil rights.

[TheMercenary]

"government's ability to violate the Constitution and our privacy rights."

We have a Constitutional right to privacy?

[TheMercenary]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1215...googlenews_wsj

[SamIam]

Your link seems to require a subscription to The Wall Street Journal to be read in its entirity. From what I can gather from Googling the subject, the right to privacy is a pretty controversial topic. Here's a quote from a site that seems to have quite a bit of information on the subject.

The U. S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy. The Bill of Rights, however, reflects the concern of James Madison and other framers for protecting specific aspects of privacy, such as the privacy of beliefs (1st Amendment), privacy of the home against demands that it be used to house soldiers (3rd Amendment), privacy of the person and possessions as against unreasonable searches (4th Amendment), and the 5th Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, which provides protection for the privacy of personal information. In addition, the Ninth Amendment states that the "enumeration of certain rights" in the Bill of Rights "shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people." The meaning of the Ninth Amendment is elusive, but some persons (including Justice Goldberg in his Griswold concurrence) have interpreted the Ninth Amendment as justification for broadly reading the Bill of Rights to protect privacy in ways not specifically provided in the first eight amendments.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...ofprivacy.html

[TheMercenary]

Thanks for the link Sam.