Hold Congressman Arcuri Accountable for FISA Betrayal

Bit by bit, day by day, one of the most important things we can do as activists against the FISA Amendments Act is to hold accountable the members of Congress who voted for the terrible law. Especially with the Democrats who turned coat and joined the Republicans to support the legislation, it’s important that we let constituents know what their representatives have done.

Think of it as a constant, low drumbeat of pressure. Keep it up for long enough, and it may have an effect.

One member of Congress who ought to be held in special contempt by his Democratic constituents is Mike Arcuri, who has the seat in the House of Representatives for the 24th District in upstate New York.

Michael Arcuri not only voted in favor of George W. Bush’s program of government spying against Americans – he led the effort to shove the FISA Amendments Act through the House of Representatives just 24 hours after the text of the bill was made available, before most members of Congress had the chance to read it, and with just one hour of debate. Thanks to Arcuri, opponents of the legislation had less than ten minutes – total – to express their concerns with the law.

Given that the FISA Amendments Act attacks the Constitution of the United States of America, wrecking the fourth amendment and the system of checks and balances, and blatantly disobeying the prohibition on ex post facto laws, having less than 10 minutes to express objections was not enough. It was a move to willfully preserve ignorance, and Congressman Arcuri made it possible.

Flip Flop Obama Was Against Protect America Act, Now For It!

Barack Obama has done himself in with his support for the FISA Amendments Act. The problem isn’t just that the FISA Amendments Act is a badly written law, and a flagrant abuse against Americans’ constitutional rights.

The biggest problem for Obama is that his support for the FISA Amendments Act is intellectually dishonest, and logically impossible to support because it’s internally inconsistent.

Consider two statements made in yesterday’s statement by Obama trying to explain his support for the FISA Amendments Act:

First: “I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year.”

Then: “Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I’ve chosen to support the current compromise.”

When Barack Obama says in the second statement that he doesn’t want the President to lose “important surveillance tools”. You know what those “important surveillance tools” are? They’re the tools established by the Protect America Act:

– Physical searches of Americans’ homes without a search warrant or any evidence of a crime.
– Electronic eavesdropping on our telephone calls, emails and web surfing without a search warrant or other judicial supervision.
– Making the administrators of the spy programs the same people to certify the spy programs’ legality.

When Barack Obama says that he wants to keep “important surveillance tools” from expiring, he’s saying that he wants to keep the Protect America Act from expiring – but earlier in the same statement, he says that the Protect America Act is a bad law, and that’s why he voted against it in 2007!

Barack Obama was against the Protect America Act before he was for it?

That kind of sloppy thinking sunk John Kerry in 2004, and it is sinking Barack Obama in 2008.

Read the complete point by point rebuttal of Barack Obama’s new FISA Amendments Act statement.