FISA: Wiretapping more extensive under Obama than Bush

Civil Liberties advocates strangely silent

by Eric Dondero

Remember the FISA issue from 2007/early 2008? It raged all over the Leftwing Blogosphere, vehemently denounced by the ACLU, and was a favorite bugaboo of the Libertarian Left. Some Libertarians, for example, AntiWar.com, LewRockwell.com, and the Ron Paul sites, had daily tirades against the "evil Fascist Bush," and his "gross violations of civil liberties" brought about by the Patriot Act.

Now the Electonric Freedom Foundation finds that Obama's AG Eric Holder, and Intelligence agencies are taking a much more stringent line on cracking down on electronic privacy than Bush could've ever dreamed of. From EFF:

Previously, the Bush Administration has argued that the U.S. possesses "sovereign immunity" from suit for conducting electronic surveillance that violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). However, FISA is only one of several laws that restrict the government's ability to wiretap. The Obama Administration goes two steps further than Bush did, and claims that the US PATRIOT Act also renders the U.S. immune from suit under the two remaining key federal surveillance laws: the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. Essentially, the Obama Adminstration has claimed that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes.

Again, the gulf between Candidate Obama and President Obama is striking. As a candidate, Obama ran promising a new era of government transparency and accountability, an end to the Bush DOJ's radical theories of executive power, and reform of the PATRIOT Act. But, this week, Obama's own Department Of Justice has argued that, under the PATRIOT Act, the government shall be entirely unaccountable for surveilling Americans in violation of its own laws.

But today there's no mention of this issue by the so-called Civil Liberties movement. Nothing on the front page of the ACLU's site, for instance.

Even worse, a check of popular left-leaning Libertarian sites shows no coverage whatsoever of this issue; nothing at Reason, LewRockwell.com, Knappster, TheAgitator, or AntiWar.com.

The irony of all of this, is that while the Bush Administration used these powers to crack-down on Islamic Terrorism from abroad, the Obama Administration is more likely to use these powers to come after so-called "domestic terrorists," such as gun rights supporters, militia, some associated with the Ron Paul movement, and even the Libertarian Party.

Just recently, Obama supporter Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri backed a plan which identified "Libertarians," supporters of '08 candidates Bob Barr, and Ron Paul as potential "domestic terrorists."

Perhaps the Paulists and other left-libertarians should've been a little less concerned with attacking Bush, Rudy Giuliani and later McCain/Palin as "Fascists," and a little more concerned with the real Fascism of Obama?