Be careful what you wish for Obama a False Hope 11.03.2008 By Nausherwan Hafeez
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.”-Mark TwainBarack Obama has been extensively vetted during the past twenty months of his campaign. During this time, Obama has effectively managed to mobilize a diverse group of supporters ranging from young voters, to African-Americans and liberal professionals. He has steadily gained support through a savvy campaign and charismatic charm. He comes from a diverse ethnic background and purportedly offers a “change we can believe in.” With Election Day just around the corner a close analysis of his policies and track record will indicate what kind of President Obama would actually be. In particular, what would an Obama Presidency mean on both progressive issues and issues that affect American Muslims? A close look at his record paints a disturbing picture of a future Obama Presidency.Before turning to Obama, it is important to understand that the American Muslim community is no monolithic group. The estimated seven-million American Muslims are a diverse community that consists of both an indigenous African-American and immigrant population. American Muslims are an under-represented constituency in political affairs even though the Muslim vote could play a critical role in determining who becomes President. There are large clusters of Muslims in key swing states such as Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In the 2000 election, Muslims played a critical role in getting George W. Bush elected. Delinda C. Hanley, a News Editor at The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, wrote that:
After surveying the community and making overtures to both Bush and his opponent, Vice President Al Gore, the American Muslim Political Coordinating Council Political Action Committee (AMPCC-PAC), comprising the four major American-Muslim organizations—the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), American Muslim Council (AMC), CAIR, and Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), recommended that its members vote for Bush.According to CAIR figures, that recommendation resulted in 78 percent of Muslims voting for George W. Bush. In Florida, the most crucial state in the last elections, exit polls showed that 91 percent of the 60,000 Muslim Americans who voted supported Bush.Muslims were attracted to Bush for his stance on civil liberties, foreign policy, and social values. Muslims turned their support away from Bush after he reneged on his campaign promises and turned out to be a bellicose warmonger. Hanley went on to note that a “June CAIR poll of Muslims who had voted for Bush in 2000 found that 50 percent planned to vote for Kerry, 26 for Nader, only 3 percent for Bush, with the rest not yet sure.” In 2004, the Muslim Electorate Council of America conducted a study that found that there are more than 2 million Muslims eligible to vote in the United States and about 57 percent of them were registered to vote. This election cycle the Muslim vote appears headed towards Obama with the tacit—though not explicit—endorsement by both CAIR and MPAC. Progressives care about a wide range of issues, from universal health-care to an end of our imperialistic wars abroad. Many progressives voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 but have been so cowed by the Bush Presidency that they are willing to sell their ideals short for the lesser of two evils. This strategy will ensure that the Democratic Party will continue to take the progressives vote for granted and we will not see real change. However, progressives still appear to be flocking to Obama.In spite of this, progressives and American Muslims need to temper their enthusiasm for Obama. A close look at his record on civil liberties, foreign policy, economic policy, and personal actions indicate that support for Obama is misplaced.Civil LibertiesOver the past eight years, civil liberties have rapidly declined and this has been a cause for consternation amongst progressives. Issues such as the National Security Agency’s (NSA) illegal warrantless wiretapping program, the Patriot Act, and Faith-Based initiatives have curtailed basic rights. Obama’s stance on these issues has been both highly pernicious and seriously misplaced. Furthermore, he slighted the Muslim community during his March 18, 2008 Speech on Race.NSA WiretappingThe NSA wiretapping is arguably the most blatant government intrusion on American citizens in a generation. This secretive program was exposed in December 2005 by the New York Times and allowed the Bush Administration through to illegally monitor—without warrants—phone calls, e-mails, Internet activity, text messaging, and other communications involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S. In May of 2006, the USA Today exposed how the NSA had been secretly collecting the phone records of millions Americans with the help of AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth. This program went above and beyond the legal method to monitor the electronic communication of Americans which was to obtain a warrant from the secret court authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Russel Tice, an NSA whistle-blower, explained:
The FISA court—it’s not very difficult to get something through a FISA court. I kinda liken the FISA court to a monkey with a rubber stamp. The monkey sees a name, the monkey sees a word justification with a block of information. It can’t read the block, but it just stamps “affirmed” on the block, and a banana chip rolls out, and then the next paper rolls in front of the monkey. When you have like 20,000 requests and only, I think, four were turned down, you can’t look at the FISA court as anything different.So, you have to ask yourself the question: Why would someone want to go around the FISA court in something like this? I would think the answer could be that this thing is a lot bigger than even the President has been told it is, and that ultimately a vacuum cleaner approach may have been used, in which case you don’t get names, and that’s ultimately why you wouldn’t go to the FISA court. And I think that’s something Congress needs to address. They need to find out exactly how this system was operated and ultimately determine whether this was indeed a very focused effort or whether this was a vacuum cleaner-type scenario.With the government and telecommunications companies involved in an explicitly illegal wiretapping program, this should have been something that was easily opposed. Since listening in on the private conversations of American citizens without warrants is a felony under U.S. law—punishable by up to 5 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine for each offense—this program should have been opposed and the criminals involved prosecuted. James Bamford, author of several books on the NSA, explained how the program worked:
[The NSA] picks up communications from satellites, it taps undersea and underground fiber-optic cables, it gets information any way it can, and then some of the information is encrypted, and it’s responsible for breaking those codes and then sending the information that it gets from these intercepts to other agencies. The massive amount of information that the government has obtained illegally is a serious intrusion on all Americans civil liberties. However, Barack Obama opposed prosecution for the criminals involved in this program and, in fact, endorsed the White House’s illegal actions.So how did Obama do this? After the NSA illegal wiretapping program was exposed, the Bush Administration called for an overhaul of the FISA Act. They temporarily received the fix that they wanted in the Protect America Act, but a permanent fix was more elusive. The two major issues that held up a revised FISA bill were the issue of prosecution for those involved in this program and how the new act should be structured. A spokesman for Barack Obama initially stated on October 24, 2007 that:
“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”This was the right stance to take. Yet when the final FISA bill came to a vote in the Senate—which included retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies—not only did Obama NOT filibuster the bill, he voted in favor of cloture—a technique that closes discussion on a bill and brings it up for vote—and voted in FAVOR of the revised FISA bill. This was a two-part flip-flop by Obama; he sold out both civil rights activists and did the exact opposite of filibuster this flawed act. The New York Times editorialized that:
[This bill would make it] much easier to spy on Americans at home, reduce the courts’ powers and grant immunity to the companies that turned over Americans’ private communications without a warrant.…The real reason this bill exists is because Mr. Bush decided after 9/11 that he was above the law…Proponents of the FISA deal say companies should not be “punished” for cooperating with the government. That’s Washington-speak for a cover-up. The purpose of withholding immunity is not to punish but to preserve the only chance of unearthing the details of Mr. Bush’s outlaw eavesdropping. Only a few senators, by the way, know just what those companies did.So Obama voted for a severely flawed FISA bill that reduces our civil liberties. The major problems with this bill are that the government can tap any communications Americans have with people overseas and that it granted telecommunication companies retroactive immunity. The criminal activities of the telecommunications companies and the government officials will not be prosecuted. Our constitution will be weaker because of this and Obama is both an enabler and complicit in this government cover-up. Patriot Act...'
After surveying the community and making overtures to both Bush and his opponent, Vice President Al Gore, the American Muslim Political Coordinating Council Political Action Committee (AMPCC-PAC), comprising the four major American-Muslim organizations—the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), American Muslim Council (AMC), CAIR, and Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), recommended that its members vote for Bush.According to CAIR figures, that recommendation resulted in 78 percent of Muslims voting for George W. Bush. In Florida, the most crucial state in the last elections, exit polls showed that 91 percent of the 60,000 Muslim Americans who voted supported Bush.Muslims were attracted to Bush for his stance on civil liberties, foreign policy, and social values. Muslims turned their support away from Bush after he reneged on his campaign promises and turned out to be a bellicose warmonger. Hanley went on to note that a “June CAIR poll of Muslims who had voted for Bush in 2000 found that 50 percent planned to vote for Kerry, 26 for Nader, only 3 percent for Bush, with the rest not yet sure.” In 2004, the Muslim Electorate Council of America conducted a study that found that there are more than 2 million Muslims eligible to vote in the United States and about 57 percent of them were registered to vote. This election cycle the Muslim vote appears headed towards Obama with the tacit—though not explicit—endorsement by both CAIR and MPAC. Progressives care about a wide range of issues, from universal health-care to an end of our imperialistic wars abroad. Many progressives voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 but have been so cowed by the Bush Presidency that they are willing to sell their ideals short for the lesser of two evils. This strategy will ensure that the Democratic Party will continue to take the progressives vote for granted and we will not see real change. However, progressives still appear to be flocking to Obama.In spite of this, progressives and American Muslims need to temper their enthusiasm for Obama. A close look at his record on civil liberties, foreign policy, economic policy, and personal actions indicate that support for Obama is misplaced.Civil LibertiesOver the past eight years, civil liberties have rapidly declined and this has been a cause for consternation amongst progressives. Issues such as the National Security Agency’s (NSA) illegal warrantless wiretapping program, the Patriot Act, and Faith-Based initiatives have curtailed basic rights. Obama’s stance on these issues has been both highly pernicious and seriously misplaced. Furthermore, he slighted the Muslim community during his March 18, 2008 Speech on Race.NSA WiretappingThe NSA wiretapping is arguably the most blatant government intrusion on American citizens in a generation. This secretive program was exposed in December 2005 by the New York Times and allowed the Bush Administration through to illegally monitor—without warrants—phone calls, e-mails, Internet activity, text messaging, and other communications involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S. In May of 2006, the USA Today exposed how the NSA had been secretly collecting the phone records of millions Americans with the help of AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth. This program went above and beyond the legal method to monitor the electronic communication of Americans which was to obtain a warrant from the secret court authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Russel Tice, an NSA whistle-blower, explained:
The FISA court—it’s not very difficult to get something through a FISA court. I kinda liken the FISA court to a monkey with a rubber stamp. The monkey sees a name, the monkey sees a word justification with a block of information. It can’t read the block, but it just stamps “affirmed” on the block, and a banana chip rolls out, and then the next paper rolls in front of the monkey. When you have like 20,000 requests and only, I think, four were turned down, you can’t look at the FISA court as anything different.So, you have to ask yourself the question: Why would someone want to go around the FISA court in something like this? I would think the answer could be that this thing is a lot bigger than even the President has been told it is, and that ultimately a vacuum cleaner approach may have been used, in which case you don’t get names, and that’s ultimately why you wouldn’t go to the FISA court. And I think that’s something Congress needs to address. They need to find out exactly how this system was operated and ultimately determine whether this was indeed a very focused effort or whether this was a vacuum cleaner-type scenario.With the government and telecommunications companies involved in an explicitly illegal wiretapping program, this should have been something that was easily opposed. Since listening in on the private conversations of American citizens without warrants is a felony under U.S. law—punishable by up to 5 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine for each offense—this program should have been opposed and the criminals involved prosecuted. James Bamford, author of several books on the NSA, explained how the program worked:
[The NSA] picks up communications from satellites, it taps undersea and underground fiber-optic cables, it gets information any way it can, and then some of the information is encrypted, and it’s responsible for breaking those codes and then sending the information that it gets from these intercepts to other agencies. The massive amount of information that the government has obtained illegally is a serious intrusion on all Americans civil liberties. However, Barack Obama opposed prosecution for the criminals involved in this program and, in fact, endorsed the White House’s illegal actions.So how did Obama do this? After the NSA illegal wiretapping program was exposed, the Bush Administration called for an overhaul of the FISA Act. They temporarily received the fix that they wanted in the Protect America Act, but a permanent fix was more elusive. The two major issues that held up a revised FISA bill were the issue of prosecution for those involved in this program and how the new act should be structured. A spokesman for Barack Obama initially stated on October 24, 2007 that:
“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”This was the right stance to take. Yet when the final FISA bill came to a vote in the Senate—which included retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies—not only did Obama NOT filibuster the bill, he voted in favor of cloture—a technique that closes discussion on a bill and brings it up for vote—and voted in FAVOR of the revised FISA bill. This was a two-part flip-flop by Obama; he sold out both civil rights activists and did the exact opposite of filibuster this flawed act. The New York Times editorialized that:
[This bill would make it] much easier to spy on Americans at home, reduce the courts’ powers and grant immunity to the companies that turned over Americans’ private communications without a warrant.…The real reason this bill exists is because Mr. Bush decided after 9/11 that he was above the law…Proponents of the FISA deal say companies should not be “punished” for cooperating with the government. That’s Washington-speak for a cover-up. The purpose of withholding immunity is not to punish but to preserve the only chance of unearthing the details of Mr. Bush’s outlaw eavesdropping. Only a few senators, by the way, know just what those companies did.So Obama voted for a severely flawed FISA bill that reduces our civil liberties. The major problems with this bill are that the government can tap any communications Americans have with people overseas and that it granted telecommunication companies retroactive immunity. The criminal activities of the telecommunications companies and the government officials will not be prosecuted. Our constitution will be weaker because of this and Obama is both an enabler and complicit in this government cover-up. Patriot Act...'
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