A New Wave

This Just In: Obama Is A Politician, After All

The Senate voted 80-15 yesterday in favor of granting immunity to telecoms who engaged in electronic eavesdropping under Bush Administration "information-gathering guidelines". This is the first part of a two-part vote on the bill. Sen. Barack Obama held a press conference after the vote, explaining why he favored the "reworked" FISA legislation:

Asked specifically why he's supporting the current FISA bill when he'd promised months ago to support a filibuster of an earlier version of the bill, Obama suggested flat out that "national security" overrides the question of telecom immunity...

[snip]

Obama's line on national security here seems to be affirmation of something that many understood already: That he will support the bill even if telecom immunity isn't stripped from it, despite his promise to try to get immunity out of the legislation. If the issue of telecom immunity doesn't override national security, he'll of course vote for the bill with or without it.

Happy 4th of July! - Part III

Ah, the Swedes. So insistent about little things - like freedom, privacy, civil liberties. So committed to ensuring that their civil liberties remain intact. Granted, Sweden is a lot smaller than the U.S. Still, the fact that a majority of Swedish citizens understand the threat posed by unwarranted eavesdropping/snooping and will take action about it is encouraging. We have a role model: