Today, Senators Barack Obama (D-Illinois) and Hillary Clinton (D-New York) stated similar opinions when asked if they would protect the civil liberties of citizens, saying that they would respectively handle wiretappings on "a case to case basis". Both Senators agreed that all surveillance of the American public must be carried out lawfully, with granted permission under a judicial warrant. The statements made by both Senators, while reinforcing the UACL's stance on the matter, were noncommital in nature. Other Senators involved in yesterday's argument presented views similar to those stated by the two democratic Senators. When asked whether she endorsed the President, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California) stated that although she believes that all our resources need to be used to find suspected terrorists, the constitution cannot be violated and the proper measures must be taken, which she said included getting proper warrants in order to wiretap citizens. She also said that the FISA agreement had been broken by the Executive order. Senator Arlen Specter stated that while he isn't in favor of the act, he wouldn't go as extreme to support a comment he made in January 2006, when he stated that if the president approved this action, he should be impeached. It is encouraging to see that at least some officials within our nation's government recognize the threat posed by the President's independent and unlawful actions. Hopefully, they will follow their statements with consistent action in favor of respected civil liberties when the issue hits the floor of Congress. We will just have to wait and see.
by: Jordan Lonner
