Greenwald on why the FISA vote matters

The must read article in advance of the FISA "debate" this week can be found here.

I continue to be deeply disappointed by Obama's support for this bill. What's more, his rationale for supporting it -- "[t]he exclusivity provision makes it clear to any President or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court" -- is insulting our intelligence. Until the Bush administration began espousing its views of the unitary executive theory (the President is the decider and his power cannot be constrained by Congress or Court), no one believed that the President could break the law with impunity or that the President's power superseded the authority of the FISA court. If so, why was Clinton almost impeached based on allegations that he broke the law by lying under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky?

Moreover, the bill that Obama supports does nothing to contradict the unitary executive theory, and does nothing to prevent the President from knowingly breaking the law in the future. Rather, it shields everyone involved in the illegal spying program -- Bush administration officials, leading Democrats in the House and Senate, and the telecommunications companies -- from accountability, thereby reaffirming that the President can break the law with impunity.

Because the alternative is much worse, Obama can probably still rely on getting sufficient votes to become the 44th President. But where will the excitement be? Where will the "change we can believe in" be? Not with me.

And who will stand up and defend Obama as a man of principle when the same folks who now support the unitary executive theory because there's a Republican President will suddenly reassert the "proper" role of the federalist-society-infused judiciary as soon as there's a Democratic President? Not I.