Today, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama voted for H.R.6304, which amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (F.I.S.A). In doing so he voted to give telecommunication providers immunity against civil damages that they might incur in the course of enabling the government to execute wiretaps and other types of electronic surveillance. He did so, after an amendment to the bill that would have stripped out the immunity provision, S.Amdt. 5064, was defeated 32-66. In voting for the bill, Obama acted in direct contradiction to his earlier statements. In 2007 Bill Burton, an Obama campaign spokesman, said “To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”
The original F.I.S.A statute was passed in 1978 in order to protect civil liberties against overly expansive government surveillance, and had clear penalties of $100 per person, per day, plus punitive damages, for telecommunications companies that conducted electronic surveillance without judicial oversight. Given that each day tens of millions of people have their data go across the networks of some of the larger telcos, the risk that these companies faced by working with the government on extra-judicial wiretaps was extreme. In giving companies that work with the government immunity from these penalties, H.R. 6304, and Barack Obama who voted for it, just took away the only reason stopping AT&T, Verizon, and others from helping the government use extra-judicial wiretaps. In voting for the bill, Obama not only helped the telco’s, but also broke his promise to protect the American people from expansive government surveillance.
The image above was created with this site, which lets you add whatever message you want to Obama’s campaign platform.
Note that TechCrunch endorsed Barack Obama, partially on his policies towards telecommunications companies.
Who’s Barack Obama??
Its ok .. I still love you ‘bama
People can change their minds but when a politician does it we call it Flip Flop…not saying that he chose a better option…
I refreshed the page a few times, got a John McCain ad every time. wtf
Let this be a reminder that Americans must stop waiting for one individual to make great change in America. If Americans desire ‘real change’, they can do so today by uniting in great numbers to shift the course of America’s future.
Since 1913, the government hasn’t truly been a friend of the people, but an enemy. Let’s face reality, folks: Nothing will change in Washington, D.C. as long as you expect it to be the point of change.
‘Real change’ starts in your heart, mind, soul, spirit, home and community. As long as we go home each day, insulating our lives in soulless bubbles fed by the garbage on our TVs and radios, we’ll never witness the beauty of real freedom and prosperity in America.
Change is up to you, America. Not Barack Obama, John McCain or anyone else.
Good luck my USA comrades, I believe you will need it during you descent into a totalitarian state.
Seriously, viewing from the outside: Holy F*cking Sh*t.
Well, Europe isn’t any better if that’s what you’re aiming at. Sweden’s got the FRA, the British government is going to have authority to require private encryption keys, and so on.
Saying he would support a filibuster does not make voting to approve the bill a lie. And that’s how politicians teach tech blogs a lesson.
I WAS an obama supporter. After spending over $500 on campaign contribution and buying stuffs to support him to become the next president because of his promise and his position in the past on Iraq and FISA. Now that he has the necessary support, he intends to do away with it and has clearly steer in a different direction. Namely, his speech to AIPAC. He said that he would fund $30B for Israel defense and remove threat from Iran. These two points did rile me up. He wanted to incite the need to get into war. In addition, he said Jeruleslam (?) will remain intact and be part of Israel. His language was stronger.
Now with the FISA voting to give retroactive immunity and expansive executive eavesdropping power WITHOUT court order is blantantly absurd and abuse of the Constitution 4th amendment. I find it applauding that the words of George Bush still holds true as he erode the rights bestow upon us by the Constitution that the Constitution is just a piece of paper.
All great empire will come to an end. This end is always and will always be within.
“I know it was you Fredo, you broke my heart”
Pelosi and Reid are the real problems here, but Obama made a deal with the devil on this one. Democrats are running scared.
From a foreign and international perspective, first of all, regardless of the issue:
1) Techcrunch supported Obama so for you to do a negative story is very far from professional considering the negative weight it can have not just with undecided voters but also the general population.
2) If he didn’t move in this direction, people would claim that he’s “suporting the terrorist” By the way, the government does not care about your phonecall with your mom and girlfriend. If you’re not doing anything illegal you shouldn’t worry but if the next phonecall can stop 5000 people from dying, why not listen. I used to be against this until I read the facts.
3) I go to Techcrunch because I appreciate Michael Arrington’s very professional business on delivering the most updated news spanning all over the world and changing the way news is delivered and affecting big decisions large CEOs in the software industry take and not to get into heated political debates because that’s the job of things like Politico.com. I hope you don’t loose that appeal
Thanks for the Story anyway!
The facts? The flying f—ing facts? You have got to be kidding me.
As the days go on, Obama will turn more and more centrist to appease more voters. He clarified his position on supporting the FISA bill with its warrantless wiretapping and telecom criminal immunity by giving a speech today saying it’s for the good of the country. Wait until the Iraq War is good for the country. The Afghan War being good for the country. The increase in the military by an additional 92,000 troops good for the country. Deficit spending being good for the country.
Hope and change, indeed.
Why is this on Techcrunch?
This makes about as much sense as Google getting into the Virtual World space.
On another note, I don’t agree with everything Obama does, but undoubtedly he has more character and integrity than almost any candidate we’ve seen in a while.
What would happen if he did vote to prosecute. Would that have an impact on him winning the presidency? of course it would.
Hes doing what he has to do to win…Politics is a game. Hes playing it very well.. i doubt he would do the same if he was already president. Win first then make your point
Please consider voting Mccain everyone. Both Mccain and Obama are drifters to the center, but Mccain is a greater patriot than Osama, I mean Obama. Afterall, who wants a President (with a capital P) whose pastor chants “G-D damn America,” and his cousins are Islamofascists.
And yet people wonder why the US is like it is…
Wasn’t this the dude you endorsed Michael?
anyone know if Basecamp is down today?
As an ouside observer I can only say: How the hell do you Americans put up with this?! No possible terrorist attack can be an excuse for this! I thoght Obama would make a differnece… now I’m more and more convinced that none of the candidates that come out of this system will ever make a difference…
I’m voting Ron Paul as a write-in candidate. Both Obama and McCain are unacceptable to me.
Get this crap off TechCrunch.
Who cares? Obama has this thing in the bag. Noone is going to vote for another term of George Bush(McCain), and Obama can flip flop on 90% of the issues and he’ll be a smaller flip flopper than McCain.
If McCain from 2000 was running I’d vote for him. But the current McCain will just continue shitting all over the conservative principles, just like Bushie did the second he got into the white house, so fuck Bush and fuck McCain, maybe in 2004 the GOP will nominate a real conservative.
I’m all for going to the center, but McCain is going to the center on all the wrong issues, while keeping all the batshit crazy policies that make most people ashamed of being republicans.
It’s 2008 now.
eh I meant to say 2012
Which way did McCaine vote?
“He did so, after an amendment to the bill that would have stripped out the immunity provision, S.Amdt. 5064, was defeated 32-66.”
I’m not a big Obama supporter, but the devil is always in the details. Hence, if there were changes Barack Obama deemed problematic, then he likely did what he thought was in the best interests of Americans given the specific language of the bill.
I don’t think this is a big deal.
WHY ARE WE DISCUSSING POLITICS ON THIS FREAKING BLOG?????
NEXT..
@19 I totally agree!
Last I checked this wasn’t some whiny political blog. Maybe you meant to post this on your PERSONAL blog.
When are you going to realize, the democrats never have, nor will amount to anything. The only time they appear to rise, is when the republicans have done or not done something, but NEVER because of anything that the democrats actually accomplished. Face it, this United Empire of America is headed towards its demise as evident by the katrina fiasco, etc. and will take another 50 years to rise back to its glory days when you could go to the washington monument with a six pack, a boom box, and boogey all night long under the fourth of july fireworks. I miss those days.
Ben Batshit, I mean, Bahkshi - go hang out on the fox news website - please.
Yeah Dmitry #10, you got a point, makes me sick to see this blog gets political and now we have respectable international input from you and too bad it’s counteracted by negativity from people like #14 Ben Bakhashi, a racist guy from Israel with a pro israel blog telling Americans how to vote. Thanks a lot for the advise. We don’t need it. If I were you I would work on figuring out why you guys lost against Hezbollah and start reaching out for neighbors that despise you. I mean, forget Arab, Jew, Muslim, Christian. Just think of the concept of a state that exists knowing it’s not accepted by all its neighbors, how do you guys live like that. What kind of a miserable life is that? Why not work towards peace. 15 surrounding countries can’t be all wrong, how can Israel fix itself and reach out, these are things to think of instead of spreading your hate to America, I’m white and will vote for Obama and more whites will vote for him than for Mc Cain because despite the fact that he’s not perfect, he’s a sincere person a change to the mentality and I agree with the above comment that the real change will come within us not from Obama but he’ll be a great tole model
Mike, fire this guy and if you want to make posts like this put it on crunchnotes so i don’t have to read it.
These issues were very important in Mike’s interviews on the whole Tech President thing. I hope that when you do the general election endorsements, you remember this…
I appreciate the tech-relevant politics coverage. It’s too bad that the politicians are so anti-tech.
well one good thing came out of this post is that it help out this retard Ben Bakhsi. Guaranteed never to post again with the same handle. perhaps he can get a job as IT guru for the mccain camp. Go T. Boone Pickens. We need more americans like him.
three things:
1) obama’s previous statement referred only to retroactive immunity, not immunity in general
2) i wish we’d stop using the term “flip flop” in our political discourse. it’s way too laced with bitter connotations by this point.
3) if there’s a problem here, it’s with a government impinging on civil liberties, not the corporations that it coerces into helping it do so.
I believe the point is that the amendment that was stripped out would have to have passed in order for Obama’s vote to be consistent with his past statements. The fact the the amendment was stripped, and even after this fact Obama still voted to support the bill, that is where the problem lies.
For those of you unfamiliar with these “details”, Obama had previously made a point of opposing any sort of retroactive immunity for the telecoms. The bill that he now voted for effectively grants retroactive immunity. He made a statement that gathered him a lot of support, and then he voted in a manner contradictory to his stated belief, and contrary to the beliefs of a number of his supporters. And that’s why some people aren’t happy, although in all honesty, this won’t be a serious issue either way. Apparently only fringe groups care about these wild ideas like civil rights.
1. Barack stance is that telco’s should not be punished for what the federal gov’t asked them to do for national security. I get the impression that most of you have no clue as to what this bill means other than someone spying on your porn surfing habits. You should be pissed at the Bush administration/ NSA and not the telco’s.
sorry. immunity. it’s not retroactive. yet.
Boy, I sure wish this was relevant.
It hurts to find out that Obama is all talk.
I had high hopes for Obama. When it comes right down to it, I don’t think he knows what the hell he’s doing. He’s in over his head.
Everybody should relax… 69 senators - including 21 democrats - voted for this bill so there was a lot of support. I do believe that people suing for everything they don’t like is way out of control. Web sites like being protected from liability when users of their sites libel others or post illegal content. Why shouldn’t Obama be pro-business and support restrictions on lawsuits resulting from obeying law-enforcement requests?
Dan K - this is a pretty ridiculous post. What about the angle that McCain is a coward for not voting at all on such a controversial bill?
That is TechCrunch’s love affair with Obama comes crashing down. Wait for more. This is politics and politicians have not friends or foes.
“15 surrounding countries can’t be all wrong” The same 15 countries that support 9/11. I’m an American and damn proud. Just as any Italian wants Italy to be in peace, I am a Jew that wants Israel to live in peace. Why don’t you read what I write instead of jumping to conclusions. What is your idea of “working towards peace.” Peace is a state of mind.
Keep yapping though, but remember, 1 mouth, 2 ears. One day you’ll realize that Israel has a right to exist next to people who don’t want its complete destruction.
Btw. You are barking up the wrong tree, the Google guys are also two major supporters of Israel and her defense. Maybe you should boycott Google because they are Jewish.
Pretty balsy story, Techcrunch. Stay out of politics if you don’t want to lose subscribers, and the phony premise that you’re only writing this story because of the telecommunications connection is bogus.
Had you done more research or maybe avoided the Obama Koolaid, you would have endorsed Ron Paul, who has always voted against these kinds of awful government intrusions on our freedoms.
i want to cut his nuts out!!
Was it a boring day in the office guys? Why in the world is this lukewarm political commentary considered appropriate for TechCrunch? You guys are losing your focus.
What does it matter?…They both “flip-flop”, so, pick your poison
Or the third option: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/
And, Techcruch, I’m glad you ran this story. More people need to be involved and aware with whats happening all around them; Please, please, please open your eyes. Light a fire and do some research-at least for your own sake!
Isn’t it entrapment for the government to persuade an entity to commit a crime and then prosecute them for it? In other words, doesn’t this bill really come down to preventing a whole bag full of frivolous law suits, due to the fact that the government can’t prosecute the telephone companies since they were assuaged that they were not violating the law by the government?
Obama broke his promise, but it’s probably for the better.
Barack Obama is a disgusting piece of shit — and this is coming form a Democrat who voted for him. What a betrayal of values. Obama — if you can’t win without going center, don’t run. And don’t push the only liberal — Edwards — out of the race, by lying to, and tapping financial support of Silicon Valley.
I thought this was a great article. Good to see some range on this blog. I’m just glad it wasn’t Twitter voting for the bill…
i am disappointed as you all, but really do we want another republican? there are problems, but its better than the alternative. mccain doesn’t even use a computer. come on, be realistic.
Over the next several months (and the four years that follow, if elected) it will be fascinating to watch the Obama’s lemming-like followers become increasingly disillusioned as they realize he’s a politician, nothing more.