Tote Bags? Check. Fourth Amendment Rights? Not So Much.

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August 18, 4:59 PM

by Matt Wolf, Colorado Politics Examiner

 

 

Less than two months after the announcement of sponsors for next week's Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama abandoned his pledge to filibuster any FISA bill that contained retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that eavesdropped on Americans without proper legal justification. The July 9th Senate vote was followed by this cowardly statement from the Obama camp:

"Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise."

Now that Glenn Greenwald from Salon.com has gotten his hands on pictures of the Official DNC tote bags, with AT&T's logo prominently featured, maybe we have a better idea why Obama buckled.

AT&T was facing a serious lawsuit regarding its eavesdropping activities from a privacy group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but despite losing when they filed a motion to dismiss the suit, they now have nothing to worry about thanks to the new FISA bill. 

To be fair, Barack Obama and the many Democrats who voted for the bill are not the only politicians that have scurried into a corner on this issue after originally standing up for the Constitution. Back in November, John McCain had this to say about companies like AT&T opening their networks to eavesdropping by the government:

"When companies provide private records of Americans to the government without proper legal subpoena, warrants, or other legal orders, their heart may be in the right place, but their actions undermine our respect for the law."

Of course, McCain was polling at about 9 percent at that point for the Republican nomination, and he soon fell in line with retroactive immunity, calling the illegal eavesdropping, "constitutional and appropriate."

Perhaps three of McCain's most trusted advisors, three guys with major connections to the telecommunications industry, got in his ear. Rick Davis, McCain's Campaign Manager, is a former lobbyist for BellSouth, Verizon and SBC Communications. Charlie Black, another top advisor, is the head of the lobbying firm BKSH and Associates, which represents AT&T. And Mark Buse, McCain's Senate Chief of Staff, once worked for AT&T.

Let's be clear on exactly what happened here: A group of well-connected corporations broke the law and were sued by American citizens. The corporations kept losing in court. Then those corporations lobbied politicians to pass a law saying they did nothing wrong. And then the politicians passed that law. If Vaughn Walker, the U.S. District Judge that was presiding over the EFF suit, had AT&T in his stock portfolio, he would be recused from the case. But Barack Obama and John McCain, flush with donations from telecommunications companies (and now these nifty tote bags), get to simply toss the lawsuits with one vote in the Senate, effectively overruling all judicial discretion.

In an excellent essay on how to establish the rule of law for democracies in third world countries, Thomas Carothers from Foreign Affairs magazine says, "Above all, government officials must refrain from interfering with judicial decision-making." 

So much for that.

If you're a delegate or a member of the media, and you receive this tote bag when you arrive in Denver, and you care about the United States Constitution, throw the bag in the nearest trash can. Order one of these instead.

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