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.
Yeah you better get used to it. Barry is nothing but a hollow shell of a politician that will say anything to get elected -he makes Hillary look like George Washington.
Barry is a complete farking stooge when it comes to anything with any weight to it.
Saying he would enact ‘aggressive diplomacy’ towards Iran and their consistent nuclear pursuits.
What the HELL is ‘aggressive diplomacy’? OOOHHH we are gonna talk at you REEEEAL HARD Iran. What a joker.
…sometimes you have to do a little evil (eg, compromise) in order to do a whole lot of good. Obama knows he needs to broaden his appeal in order to win the presidency–that is the goal.
Once he is the president, there is no doubt his intelligence, integrity and leadership will bring people together to work toward the common good. I’m know pollyanna but the thought of McCain in office does not bode well for the US.
Oh BTW Techcrunch.
If some scumbag started leaving posts about seriously planning terrorist attacks -I mean SERIOUSLY- like even your most die hard leftist keypuncher was going “holy crap that’s scary…”, would you, in the name of ‘civil liberties’ refuse to give up the IP address?
If you would refuse then GO TO HELL.
I don’t why, but i found his decision change so extraordinarily disappointing. What kind of constitutional lawyer votes against the constitution?
I guess for a few months there I really thought he was going to be something different but I suppose I am just naive and stupid. I’m so tired of disappointment.
I donated $450 i couldn’t afford and I have asked for my money back. At this point in my life I feel compelled to actually take a stand on something even in my small, unimportant way.
been reading TC religiously for about 2 years now. Just want to point out Arrington thought that digg’s community was falling apart (posting crap diluted the rich content) and that is what is causing it to not make the impact it could have. Digg used to be like hacker news when it started. I was there when it started. But now its crap. stupid crap. Now with that in mind, there are a few trends ive noticed here at TC.
Over the last 2 months I’ve noticed:
1) Gillmor posts that are formed like he is on amphetamines. They fixed that and put him on TechcrunchIT so he doesnt make all his posts on this good blog.
2) Persistent kicking of yahoo while they are down. They fixed this by well, now supporting yahoo and showing MS (gutting search assets) and Icahn (corporate raider) may not have the best intentions.
3) Politics. You guys seem to know how to have some damage control abilities, please keep this stuff off.
Arrington please make it like a year ago when duncan and nick were still around . I know you are busy but you had a real gem here that wasnt tarnished. You still have good posts and your still at a good ratio (thats why I come back) but theres this noise that im not used to. I know its hard to blog all the time and you have to hand over control to others. Not even CNN, google news, the post, or digg or whatever could touch the quality of this blog. Show why we love and should be proud of tech and how us nerds are revolutionizing the world. This ideal is hard to keep up, with boards firing visionaries, many unoriginal ideas, excessive inefficient spending, not funding good ideas. But I know theres good stuff out there that isnt low hanging fruit. I went to MSR labs for the silicon valley road show (found out through this blog). The engineers are working hard on really great things. Dont let the business/money men cloud the soul of the tech.
It seemed clear to me that he was a politician from the beginning — One irrational hope for change after another.
I guess the good news is Hillary can still be elected at the national convention. At least she was a centrist from the beginning. She didn’t pander to the far left for their votes and then whip it out and piss on our rights a month later.
Let’s not forget Arrington also endorsed DanceJam…
What is this nonsense masquerading as “gotcha” journalism doing on this site?
Memo to TechCruch: the quality of this blog is slipping. You are losing your focus and with it, you are losing your grip on your franchise.
Dear readers: Michael Arrington is the problem here. It’s a sad case of hubris and arrogance. A classic example of overreach. During the past year Arrington’s ego has inflated to such a great degree that he now thinks he can take on issues far afield from the original focus of this site. His freelance writers feel similarly empowered to opine on whatever topic strikes their fancy, regardless of their level of ignorance on the subject or their inability to fact-check mindless assertions.
The only thing this post reveals is that the quality threshold at TechCrunch is miserably low. This low-grade sensationalistic post casts into doubt all of the hasty and poorly-researched speculative material that has been posted on TechCrunch during the past several months.
Quality is slipping. This blog has passed its sell-by date. It stinks.
Read this…..
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20080702.html
Take notes. There will be a test, in January.
@tiresome, please shut up.
obama sucks. vote for ralph nader.
@105
Are you kidding…Hilary’s campaign is $30M in debt through gross mismanagement and incompetence. Think of what damge she would do while in office.
To top it off, she expects Obama to organize fund raisers to help her pay off the debt..what gall.
Please let a blog that specializes in political discussions tackle this issue. Michael did a great thing endorsing candidates for either party, but no further discussion is necessary. you won’t do the candidate any justice and you are not a platform for political discussion
I usually expect from responsive journalism some context, some background, something that will help the reader understand what is going on. “flip flop” just doesn’t cut it for me. Neither does blind faith. There must be someone out there who can attempt a good explanation about why Obama voted favourably.
So What!
Yes We Can!
Obama ‘08 ‘12
Arlington knows how to grow a homegrown business. He has an audience that reads his sheet, and u don’t haha. =) Ok, my maturity hat is off, night.
Sadly, we techies have reduced the 30 second sound bite even further - if we can’t get a full explanation in 140 characters, then it’s just not worth paying attention to.
The Obama vote was fully explained on his Web site, and agree or disagree with this chosen tactic, you have to agree (if you’ve paid this issue more than 140 characters worth of attention) that there is more than a simple yes vote = bad, no vote = good.
I don’t think that it’s worthwhile to have a political discussion here, but this issue clearly shows me that in a twitter culture, we’re not getting smarter about issues, we’re getting even more impatient for stories that take any amount of time to explain.
Sad.
@Dmitry
I’m really confused by this statement:
“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.”
So, according to you, once you pledge your support to a candidate you can never question them or call them on things they’re doing that are bad? It’s actually extremely professional for a news source/blog/whatever not to just tow the party line and be a bunch of yes men.
Err, why’s this on um “Tech Crunch”
Anyway, seeing as it is (and I hope this is not a trend of things to come), may as well address it. Any man who can’t/doesn’t change his mind under any circumstance is a fool. I’m assuming the audience on this blog is more than a tad bit intelligent so they’ll be able to look at this scenario from both sides.
*what are the implications of Obama voting against? (The long term implications, whether or not he can best protect the people with this decision, how much harm/physical danger/potential loss of life might occur)
*what are the ’serious’ repercussions of his voting for the motion?
Ultimately, as techie’s we must learn to analyze not olny our work, but also our environment. We have limited options people, and we have to make the best we can do with either. Once we have made it, we must stand by it and not ‘flip-flop without a clear and solid understanding of why a decision was taken.
Just a question mike, by making this post are you indirectly implying that people must look to McCain instead? If yes, then I hope you have thought wisely on this, if not, then what is the purpose of this post?
The proper graphic:
http://www.wecanbelievein.com/.....er+Freedom
Obama lost my vote over this.
I may hate many of John McCain’s policies, but at least there are principled arguments to be made for them. There is no principled argument for telecom immunity. It’s just a blatent disregard for the rule of law, and frankly I’ve had enough of that with the current administration.
Corporations are an important check on government’s power. When their financial incentive to do so is removed, they quickly become government’s slaves. And that’s terrifying.
People who think a political article shouldn’t be on Techcrunch are wrong. Techcrunch is the best source of industry news in the technology industry. And this bill passing impacts the tech industry.
These requests from government can be enormously expensive for technology companies to fulfill and present real moral issues for company’s executives. Would they rather make users fear for their privacy or anger the government? Unfortunately, in all the cases but Google, we already know what they tend to do — they give government what they want, no matter how illegal the request.
For just one example, if this trend continues, companies such as 123andMe are going to have constant illegal requests from the government for their user’s DNA, and who knows what they’ll do? Private enterprise is essentially a back-door for the CIA now.
Seriously, to run a tech company you need to be involved in politics. Every company or industry that isn’t one day regrets it. (Cough, Microsoft.) Buying laws is fairly cheap — this one didn’t cost the telcos much. If the technology industry wasn’t so negligent in comparison to other industries, America’s technology policy might actually end up being good for the industry.
@Jake McKee: Could you provide a link to that? I would love to read Obama’s explaination for his vote, but I clicked around his website and searched with Google and didn’t find anything. Merely: Your search - telecom immunity site:http://www.barackobama.com - did not match any documents.
Leave it to Web 2.0 hipsters to fall in love with Obama the messiah, God to the godless.
If are a fool if you think government has any interest in listening in on our phonecalls to our friends and grandmothers. This is about listening in on calls of foreign origin from SUSPECTED TERRORISTS. FISA was created during the Carter administration and the law hasn’t evolved fast enough with new technology.
Shbrown I’m surprised you aren’t trying to vote for bush in a 3rd term after watching some fox news. Again, you are easily led by some unknown writer hack on a tech blog. This is a problem with the government coercing the corporations. Obviously from your second comment you don’t know why he voted for it. So why not use that summer high school/college vacation time and go read a little before completely bailing on your candidate.
Obama didn’t just flip flop. He outright LIED.
“Just to be clear for those who don’t realize it, Obama did not filibuster this as promised, but instead voted to cloture. That means he voted TO STOP DISCUSSING IT.”
There is his lie even if you want to ignore everything else.
No matter how you want to rationalize everything else, he broke his promise to his supporters.
Obama promised to support a filibuster and then VOTED AGAINST any possibility of a filibuster.
Read this a few times to break out of your battered wife syndrome.
@122 and 124
Just read obama’s response on why he voted the fisa bill and make your own decision.
http://my.barackobama.com/page.....commentary
Don’t let the watered down opinion of some stupid tech writer sitting in his basement be your last stop in making you decision about a candidate. If you vote against thats fine. Just make sure you have have knowledge straight from legit sources before you make a decision.
I AGREE with #12. and #125. Yes, Obama STILL has MORE Character and Integrity than any former president I know.
What’s this? A politician saying something to get support and then doing the opposite when it becomes convenient to do so? Unheard of!
I can’t believe politicians get away with this sort of thing. I wish I could skate through life pulling this sort of crap. “Yeah, I’ll continue coming in to work. Just keep paying my salary. Psyche!”
@ 125
You’re right. Let’s listen to a Constitutional Law and Civil Rights litigator instead.
“Glenn Greenwald’s Unclaimed Territory
I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York.”
“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”
“But the bill today does include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. Nonetheless, Obama voted for cloture on the bill — the exact opposition of supporting a filibuster — and then voted for the bill itself. A more complete abandonment of an unambiguous campaign promise is difficult to imagine. I wrote extensively about Obama’s support for the FISA bill, and what it means, earlier today.”
http://letters.salon.com/opini...../?show=all
I notice you didn’t refute that OBAMA LIED regardless of what you think of the Bill. There is no denying he outright LIED. How about addressing that and THEN trying excuse away this fascist bill? Glenn Greenwald has your number on that too, by the way.
Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com: “In the past 24 hours, specifically beginning with the moment Barack Obama announced that he now supports the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer House bill, there have magically arisen — in places where one would never have expected to find them — all sorts of claims about why this FISA “compromise” isn’t really so bad after all.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g...../21/obama/
Keep digging yourself into a hole.
http://my.barackobama.com/page.....gainstFISA
You Obama defenders-at-all-costs are killing this country.
If we do not hold our candidates accountable, if we allow the fear tactic of “the other might win” to pacify us, then we will lose this country.
Same goes for those who would defend McCain in the same all-encompassing way.
There is no place for fanboys where liberty is at stake.
Coalition of 27 groups opposes the FISA bill.
American Civil Liberties Union
American Library Association
Arab-America Anti-Discrimination Committee
Association of Research Libraries
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Center for American Progress Action Fund
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for National Security Studies
Congressman Bob Barr, Liberty Strategies
Defending Dissent Foundation
Doug Bandow, Vice President for Policy, Citizen Outreach Project
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Fairfax County Privacy Council
Friends Committee on National Legislation
League of Women Voters of the United States
Liberty Coalition
MAS Freedom
OMB Watch
Open Society Policy Center
OpenTheGovernment.org
People For the American Way
Privacy Lives
Republican Liberty Caucus
The Multiracial Activist
United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society
U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation
http://www.democraticundergrou.....15;6470247
But let’s just take Obama’s word for it even though it is 100% verified he lied. People who defend Obama on this are no better than the ‘Bush sheep’ apologists that you probably attack. You probably wonder how people can apologize for Bush and then do the very same thing yourself.
The REAL Democrats are the ones standing against this fascist bill.
http://www.actblue.com/page/fisa
The apologists for fascism and destruction of the Constitution? Sickening.
@Obama Lied and @Dan
Thank you. Dead on.
It’s the people that need character and integrity. Most people are apologists because they only believe in an (R) or a (D).
They have no ground to stand except the party line.
Obama just lost my vote. If he is doing this kind of stuff now, what’s going to stop him from changing his mind when he’s a president. Bad move Obama, bad move.
Great, another neoliberal with energy and corporate loyalties. Reagan smiles from Hell.
America’s telecom industry explicitly broke one of our most sacred laws and now the government is helping them get away with it.
And we’re expected to vote this year? For which crook?
There’s no other good place to credit the image, so thank you for my new FB profile photo. if the election were tomorrow, i wouldn’t make it to the polls for the first time in 20 years.
Do you realize, it eliminates CIVIL penalties. They can still go to court for CRIMINAL charges which are definitely more important. Id rather the a**holes go to jail than cough up some money.
#10. “If you’re not doing anything illegal you shouldn’t worry…”
“If I’m not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me.” - Bruce Schneier (techy enough quote for ya?)
SERIOUSLY? Have you even heard of the book ‘1984′?
The idea that “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about” assumes that the government is full of good people that would not abuse their power, ever. Even if this were true now, we cannot be sure it’ll be true in the future. The US Republic was founded on the idea that humans are corruptible and we need to have checks and balances against corruption built into our government. Because corrupt people will oppress those who have done nothing wrong.
For a concise explanation of why this is a BS argument for letting the government intrude on our privacy whenever they are so inclined, please have a look at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa....._id=998565
Let’s not forget that money makes the world go round and ultimately all of this “War on Terror” is about throwing money at the military-industrial complex, or whatever company politician X has shares in.
Outsourcing will be BHO’s next flip-flop, if he hasn’t done so already.
I’m go glad the Silicon Valley techlibs got their come-uppance on this, and there’s hope for the rest of us voting for Obama from more mainstream liberal positions that he won’t be totally hijacked and become as goofy and out of touch as all of them with what is pragmatically possible to do when you actually have to run a real country and not a hypey tech start-up.
I agree with no. 108 here — Arrington has lived this fantasy that being an “influencer” in the blogosphere and on Twitter is going to translate into political power. Not!
And hey, would you REALLY want to live in a country where the telecoms do not obey an executive order? I mean, if you are surrounded by enemies? The problem is the executive doing the order, and those around him, and they need to be replaced — the real issue in the overreach on surveillance, not the technical means of accomplishing this.
The problem of surveillance is not deal with by punishing telecoms — it’s a distraction. And I can’t help thinking that this is merely the latest in the usual war on telecoms waged by the techlibs in the Valley — and I don’t get it. Are they natural enemies because they are not in your power base? Explain.
Next stop: “net neutrality”. Obama will fail to do something extreme and wacky enough by all the torrenters and WoW patch script-kiddies, and then perhaps can go on to win the elections and get the country back to normal. Please stop getting in the way of that process.
“And hey, would you REALLY want to live in a country where the telecoms do not obey an executive order?”
Hell yes! If that executive order is to infringe upon my Constitutional rights then I not only want them to disobey that order. I want them to disobey publicly and vehemently.
What if that order is to disconnect your service because you engage in activities that criticize the executive branch? Should they obey that order?
Since when did this become the Soviet Union? Its the job of the Executive Branch to “enforce the law” not to subvert it. I can’t believe Americans have grown so complacent with liberty that such a question could even be put forth. This is America people! We don’t have to obey “an order” from the executive branch if that order breaks the law. In fact, its our responsibility to disobey that order.
We the people, including the people who make up the telecoms, are responsible for defending our own rights. You Obama defenders cant wait to surrender yours.
In 1978, small, organized groups of terror cells didn’t have the capability to do what they can do today. The government needs tools that will allow the to prevent mass terror casualties. Please get over the whole “privacy” issue. Please. If you’re not planning the bombing of your country, why are you concerned they will find keywords associated with such things in your communications. There is a level of oversight with this new policy. The government isn’t going to spy on you for doing things that are not terror related.
I absolutely abhor Obama’s liberalness, but I have to commend him on this issue. Good job, B. Hussein Obama.
It’s really really SAD that the majority of Americans think that politicians are on their side. When in reality they are being raped via butt by the entire system. We were all giving bar codes (SSNs) and told to shave our heads and fight for freedom.
Our only option is to rebel against the Government. Cut off their money supply — fed income tax. And never participate in their “democratic” voting schemes. Fascism in this republic will fail, and I’m looking forward to anarchy.
The fact that so many people are whining about this being on TechCrunch is what’s so scary.
I’m really not thrilled that so many people believe the Government having the right to spy on all of your communications is “not that big of a deal” or “news for a different blog”. This should be news everyone hears, constantly. This deserves to be on talk shows, reality shows, children’s shows, news, music and the internet. This is news you should be losing sleep over.
To all the “Obama just lost my vote!” people - please understand that McCain supports the FISA amendments, and did not vote due to a necessity to distance himself from the Republican Party line, and specifically George W Bush. McCain believes in defeating the “transcendental” threat of terrorism (damn he uses that phrase a lot…) so much that he is all too willing to throw civil rights out the window. Voting for McCain because of Obama’s flip-flop on this is not the solution.
@Ben Bakhshi, I will be so glad when this happens… “I, ___ Hussein ____, take the oath… ” as GW steps down.
I’m not surprised.
Doesn’t surprise me. He’s a politician after all. They’re all the same.
@Chris (#86),
Obama loses any argument based on experience. I’m actually a bit surprised that you would suggest voting for Obama over McCain based on senate experience and record. I suppose you’d rather we vote based on Obama’s 3 years of senate experience? I’ll take McCain’s experience before Obama’s promise of “change” any day.
To your point about McCain having a red carpet life - that may be true….but if that’s your barometer for success, then you’ve just eliminated the majority of senators (and politicians in general) from the race. Being poor doesn’t make you right any more than being rich makes you right. Character and integrity determine your path, and I think McCain wins on that front.
Click the link below and read about McCain’s time in the Hanoi Hilton. Whatever silver spoon he was born with didn’t do him much good in there.
http://tinyurl.com/mccains-ordeal
A person who doesn’t change their view in light of new information is a FOOL–ahem, George W. Bush and his war on terror that was based on nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Look, this all can be predicted. Senator Obama is a politician. In these days, politician is more like a product. There are huge marketing team (so called campaign team) who do the market research, carve out a brand, and then put up a value proposition. In primary, the anti-war sentiment is a good marketing tool and his team used it. In general election, centralist wins, so his team will move his brand to that. You can vote for Obama because you like him (as an American Idol) or you hate other candidates. But you can never vote for him because you believe him. Ask yourself, how many things that he has done (except speeches) actually demonstrated things that you can believe? (opt out public finance? claimed can unite people yet be considered as the most liberal Senator? or the way he commented to Senator Hillary, “you are likable enough?”)
Senator Obama is a good speaker, a good product that can be built. That’s all about it. Let’s just vote our American Idol or pretend not be naive about this new product.
Sen. Obama’s flip-flops–FISA, public funding, troop withdrawal, Jeremiah Wright, etc.–reek of opportunism and a lack of principle, and I expect that they will continue to build. This is turning out to be a fun campaign season.
And now, for a less hysterical view on this, please read (in 2 minutes) what Professor of Law LAWRENCE LESSIG has to say on this subject: http://lessig.org/blog/2008/07.....teria.html