What can we all agree on? [View all]

[ProSense]

It seems to me the outrage is all about proving that President Obama is doing something wrong, not illegal, but controversial. This was the premise of the recent NYT editorial on the NSA issue: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022959738

When Bush was in office, we agreed he sucked, but we also agreed on concrete actions: ending the Iraq war, ending torture, ending illegal spying and enacting laws to end or prevent abuses.

Where are the editorials, petitions, members of Congress pushing, with a similar intensity, for shield laws, repealing the AUMF and fixing or repealing the controversial parts of FISA amendments/Patriot Act?

We all agree that certain things shouldn't be continued, but it seems that there is more focus on fanning outrage directed at the President, proving he's just as bad as Bush, than there is on pushing for solutions.

A USA Today editorial from 2006.

Congress keeps itself, public in the dark on surveillance

Updated 6/14/2006 9:58

With its wiretapping of international phone calls and collecting a database of domestic phone records, the Bush administration is busy watching for evildoers.

Unfortunately, spying on those who pose a threat is not easily separated from spying on everyone else, and no one is watching the Bush administration with equal attentiveness. Despite lots of rhetoric, Congress has offered little to fulfill its duty to act as a check on the executive branch.

Today, six months after The New YorkTimes disclosed that the National Security Agency has been wiretapping international phone calls of U.S. residents without court orders, and one month after USA TODAY revealed that the NSA has been compiling a huge database of domestic phone records, Congress is poised for its first action.

<...>

By explicitly stating that the president might have such authority, Congress not only would fail to guard its constituents' privacy, it would also deepen the risk. Its actions could influence the court's thinking on the legality of the wiretaps. (An earlier version of the bill would have retroactively shielded officials who carried out the program from prosecution, raising the question: If the program is perfectly legal, as the administration insists, why would anyone need amnesty?)...Fireworks between Congress and the White House might light up headlines. But the public remains largely in the dark about government snooping.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-06-14-our-view_x.htm

Here's a NYT editorial from 2009:

Editorial

The Eavesdropping Continues

<...>

In a disturbing article in The Times on Wednesday, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau said that Congressional investigations suggest that the National Security Agency continues to routinely collect Americans’ telephone calls and e-mail messages — perhaps by the millions.

<...>

President George W. Bush started violating that law shortly after 9/11 when he authorized the N.S.A. to conduct domestic wiretapping without first getting the required warrant. When that program was exposed by The Times in late 2004, the Bush team began pressuring Congress to give retroactive legal cover to the eavesdropping operation and to the telecommunications companies that participated in it.

That finally happened in the heat of the 2008 campaign. Congress expanded FISA and gave the companies blanket immunity less than a day after the bill was introduced. We doubt if many lawmakers read the legislation. President Obama, who was still a senator at the time, voted for it, even though he had been passionately denouncing illegal wiretapping for months.

<...>

We do not believe that Mr. Obama is deliberately violating Americans’ rights as Mr. Bush did, and it is to his credit that the government acknowledged part of the problem in April. But this nation’s civil liberties are not predicated on trusting individuals to wield their powers honorably. They are founded on laws.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/opinion/18thu1.html

We need less rhetoric and more action. If the President and Congress agree, have the debate and take action.