Back in 2005, The New York Times reported that President Bush had been lying through his teeth about a warrantless wiretapping program his administration had set up under the NSA. The baldly illegal program required participation from telecom companies, who were thus exposed to millions of lawsuits from their spied-on customers. Bush urged Congress to pass a bill granting the telecoms retroactive immunity, prompting outrage from Democrats, including then-Sen. Barack Obama, who promised to filibuster any bill with such an immunity provision in October 2007.
But Obama blatantly broke his promise, not only failing to filibuster the bill, but actually voting for it. That act laid the groundwork for an incomprehensible move last week by key Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff, to vote against an amendment requiring the NSA to get a warrant before spying on American citizens. (It is worth emphasizing that at this very moment, Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States.) It's just the latest bitter fruit from Obama's wretched civil liberties legacy.
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