I. The Obama Administration “Stands Firmly Behind the Telecommunications Giant AT&T” Progressives are shocked. Absolutely shocked. The man whom they assumed to be 100% liberal based solely on his demographics is protecting those who spied on Americans illegally starting in early 2001---months before 9/11 might have justified their actions.
"President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston in the release. "But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_follows_Bush_policy_on_wiretapping_0406.htmlThe Raw Story article linked above mentions
AT&T five times. That is four more times that it mentions any of the other telecoms which helped Cheney break the law in order to compile blackmail information on Americans, including members of the press.
“It” (the Obama Administration) “also stands firmly behind the telecommunications giant AT&T.”
I’ll bet they do.
II. David Axelrod’s Other Job The Obama White House is being run by folks who have close business ties with AT&T. They have made money from their association with the telecommunications giant. And we all know that in Washington, money talks.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhead/archive/2008/05/19/obama-s-lobbying-ties.aspxEveryone remembers how the Obama 2008 campaign ran on a platform of “We don’t take money from lobbyists.” Fewer remember that the slogan really went “We don’t take money from
Washington lobbyists.” If you were a state level lobbyist, your money was considered pure on the grounds that Obama was not running for state office. However, giants like AT&T have both state and federal government lobbyists. And what is good for AT&T in New York is good for AT&T nationwide.
David Axelrod, key Obama administration adviser has been very, very good for AT&T.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2008/db20080314_121054.htmIn addition to running campaigns, Axelrod has a company called
ASK . An astroturfing enterprise (they try to make the machinations of corporations look like spontaneous “grassroots” movements), one of their big clients is (drum roll, please)….
AT&T. Not only that.
Eric Sedler, 39, a former public relations director at AT&T and corporate-reputation specialist at PR giant Edelman, is the "S" in ASK and the company's managing partner. The "K" is John Kupper, 51, a former congressional press secretary and ad-industry consultant, while the "A," of course, is Axelrod, a onetime Chicago Tribune reporter who got his start in politics when he managed Illinois Democrat Paul Simon's first election to the U.S. Senate. Sedler says opponents mischaracterize what ASK does. "I reject the notion that a company can't advocate a public policy," he says. "These issues are complicated, and people have different points of view."
Snip
Among ASK's other clients: AT&T. The telecom company, formerly known as SBC Communications, had been a customer, Sedler confirms, when it requested ASK's help to defeat a broadband referendum in three Fox Valley suburbs in 2004. ASK received $22,500 for its voter-persuasion drive.
III. Blue State and AT&T The Obama campaign hired Blue State Digital to coordinate its internet fund raising. Blue State was founded by former Howard Dean staffers as a company which is
involved in providing custom Internet applications and communications strategies to Democratic political candidates and organizations and non-profit organizations.
according to wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_State_DigitalHowever, like Axelrod, Blue State has its fingers in corporate pies, too. They probably need all the Big Business they czn get, since they had only charged the Obama campaign a paltry $1.1 million as of June 2008 for their internet fund raising work. Someone has to pay the bills at Blue State Digital.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_27/b4091000977488.htm?chan=rss_topEmailedStories_ssi_5 Besides Obama, Blue State has attracted more than 100 clients, including such widely known corporate names as AT&T (T) and Stonyfield Farm. There is also talk that the firm could continue playing a role as a contractor in an Obama White House.
Did Obama keep this promise? To quote the former GOP Vice-Presidential nominee “You betcha!” While our president seems to consider campaign promises made to voters “optional”, he likes to keep his business supporters happy.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/410988/obama_announces_white_house_internet_teamIn February, the White House announced that its team of internet specialists would include
Macon Phillips, Director of New Media
Since the election, Phillips has served as Director of New Media for the Presidential Transition Team, developing Change.gov and overseeing the transition's overall online communications. Prior to that, he served as the Deputy Director of New Media for Obama for America, managing the day to day operations of the campaign's online program. Before the campaign, Macon led Blue State Digital's strategy practice, working with clients like the Democratic National Committee and Senator Ted Kennedy.
What about Blue State Digital’s work for corporate clients? AT&T was one of their earliest customers.
In 2005, Blue State began working with AT&T, which was attempting to launch a TV service to compete with cable companies. The telecom declined to comment, but Gensemer says that in one project, Blue State used the Web and other media to organize community groups and citizens to mobilize against Connecticut's rigid cable franchise laws. Some 30,000 letters were sent to state legislators, who eventually enacted a new law making it easier for AT&T to take on the cable guys.
Those who have followed the “Cable Wars” know that it is nasty and serious business.
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2008/may/30/nashville-spending-t-cable-fight-approaches-18-mil/From an article about a cable industry skirmish in Tennessee:
Mr. Cromer said the spending “shows just how much money is at stake over the issue.” Existing cable companies, he observed, “obviously are bringing in a lot of money and don’t want to give any of it up. And obviously, AT&T sees an opportunity.”
Did AT&T see an opportunity when Cheney suggested that they spy on Americans? How much is all the blackmail information which they obtained through their domestic wiretaps worth? I am reminded of the film from the 1960s,
The President's Analyst in which The Phone Company is everywhere and knows everything. In a world in which information is power, AT&T made itself two or three times as strong as before, simply by agreeing to break the law.
When money trumps all other values (as it does so often in America), successful corporate criminals become our true leaders, while our elected politicians become Big Business puppets whose job is to fool the people into thinking that they are in charge. Both Democrats and Republicans play the part of corporate lackeys, and they play it with ease, since the alternative is low campaign coffers and negative pr from folks who can afford to hire all the astroturfers they want.
IV. We Were Warned Almost a year ago, Move-On.org must have sensed that Obama cared more for business as usual than the Constitution, because
MoveOn.org has launched a new campaign pressing Sen. Barack Obama to honor his pledge to filibuster any legislation that gives immunity to telecoms that spied on Americans
Snip
“This Monday, the fight moves to the Senate. Senator Russ Feingold says the "deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation." Barack Obama announced his partial support for the bill, but said, "It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses."
“Last year, after phone calls from MoveOn members and others, Obama went so far as to vow to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies." We need him to honor that promise.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/22/moveon-obama-must-keep-hi_n_108514.htmlMove-On’s plea was in vain. In July, then Senator Obama voted to give telecoms immunity for their part in the Bush administration blackmail ops. Lots of other Senators did, too (though not then New York Senator Hillary Clinton).
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Wiretap_immunity_bill_gets_closer_to_0709.htmlNote that Dodd and Feingold attempted to insert an amendment to the Senate bill stripping the immunity clause. It failed by almost 60 votes.
Why would so many Senators, Democrats as well as Republicans, vote against the will of the American people to give AT&T (and others) a Get Out of Civil Court Free card? It might have something to do with the nature of the warrantless wiretap program, which was ideal for obtaining blackmail information that could be used to sway the votes of Congress members. And it might have something to do with the fact that
AT&T, the defendant in EFF's NSA surveillance litigation, "spent $5.2 million in the first quarter to lobby on domestic spying legislation and other issues." To put this into perspective, AT&T's spending for three months on lobbying alone is significantly more than the entire EFF budget for a whole year, from attorneys to sysadmins, pencils to bandwidth. For 2007, AT&T spent over $16 million on lobbying.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/t-spent-5-2-million-lobbying-first-quarter-2008 V. Obama Has Been Consistent…In His Support of AT&T. Whatever Senator Obama’s reason for breaking his promise and supporting telecomm immunity, he is now in the White House and he has high approval ratings. There is no reason why he has to protect the telecoms (like AT&T) from the consequences of their criminal actions. And yet, today, his Justice Department has moved to do just that. I am interested in seeing how his loyal supporters will attempt to paint this move in the best possible light. I expect to read a lot of "He had to do it in order to push through____" (insert some legislation that has nothing to do with domestic spying) or "It is Congress's job to confront the telecoms" as well as the usual chorus of "Obama right or wrong. Anyone who does not support him is a traitor."
For the rest of us, this should be a warning sign. Money still talks in Washington and it speaks loudly at the White House. While illegal domestic spying does not affect most of us
in obvious ways, there are other business issues which impact our day to day lives----issues involving the “banksters” who want to rob our federal tax coffers at the same time that they shoot the economy in the foot by denying people credit and foreclosing on their homes. Before today, I would have said that the new administration was firmly on the side of the voters who sent Obama to Washington. However, if our new president is willing to shred the Constitution in order to keep an Axelrod client happy, I am worried about what other promises he plans to break.
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