Column:
Rights before safety must be preserved
Published Jan. 23, 2009
Politics Columnist
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake." -- President Barack Hussein Obama
When our president spoke those words during his inaugural speech, I shouted and applauded, and I am generally a laid-back person. Luckily everyone else in Ragtag Cinema was clapping, sparing me a potentially awkward moment. Normally, that much enthusiasm for constitutional rights is only displayed at American Civil Liberties Union rallies, or when my fellow "rights junkies" are watching U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., on CSPAN2 filibuster the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
For me, the above quote was a poignant moment of the inauguration because it validated my work for liberal causes over the last five years. During the 2004 primaries I realized I was a Democrat, in part because I opposed the PATRIOT Act and the erosion of our personal freedoms. Just ask my former high school classmates. The week after President George W. Bush held a 15,000-person rally in my hometown, I started a Young Democrats club. That made me the Democrat in high school and a target for debate during class. I was losing the battle as I argued with social conservatives about same-sex marriage and abortion, so I shifted the debate to subjects that resonated more with the Libertarian side of the Republican Party: privacy rights.
I recited the Ben Franklin quote about freedom and safety and who deserves which or neither ad nauseam that year. I probably didn't change many minds at the time, but it didn't matter since only a handful of students were actually old enough to vote.
These debates tested my resolve though, and I took Obama's quote and copied it to my old friends' Facebook walls only slightly bragging. In short, I've been working for years for the change in policy that President Obama has signaled in his inaugural address.
Addressing the quote directly, if Obama is able to shift policy toward "rights before safety," it may mark one of the sharpest differences between Bush and Obama, but Obama's record is not as decisive as his rhetoric.
You may recall the FISA bill I mentioned and the debates surrounding it in the Senate last year. After passing the House, the bill went to the Senate Intelligence Committee where U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., is the ranking member and acted as a whip for senators from both parties Sens. Dodd, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., filibustered the bill because it allowed retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies who illegally recorded the conversations of Americans at the behest of the Bush administration in the name of national security.
Obama (and, I should add, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who is now a close friend to the president) voted against Dodd's amendment to stop retroactive immunity and for the original House version. Bush signed the FISA bill into law last November.
If President Obama really wants to realize the change he now embodies and speaks about, I hope he reconsiders his policy on telecom immunity and Congressional leaders follow suit (including McCaskill, who may not be a leader, but has gained prestige in the Senate after this election). Of course, let's get this stimulus package out the door, begin the end of the war in Iraq and start working on universal healthcare first.
Nate Kennedy is the chairman of the Young Democrats of Missouri College Federation. He can be reached at nkennedy@themaneater.com.