Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

"My job this morning is to be so persuasive...that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack," he told a crowd of about 300 Ivy Leaguers--and, by the looks of it, a handful of locals who managed to gain access to what was supposed to be a students-only event.

For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and "wiretaps without warrants," he said. (He was referring to the lingering legal fallout over reports that the National Security Agency scooped up Americans' phone and Internet activities without court orders, ostensibly to monitor terrorist plots, in the years after the September 11 attacks.)

It's hardly a new stance for Obama, who has made similar statements in previous campaign speeches, but mention of the issue in a stump speech, alongside more frequently discussed topics like Iraq and education, may give some clue to his priorities.

John Voight.

When appearing on Governor Mike Huckabee's Fox News talk show, Voight said Obama was arrogant, caused civil unrest and stood for all that this country was against during its past. He went on to state:

"I'm here to validate all the millions of people who are opposed to the Obama healthcare. We're witnessing a slow and steady takeover of our true freedoms. We're becoming a socialist nation, and Obama is causing civil unrest in this country ... The stimulus didn't work ... We're being told what cars we can drive, how much we can make ... Obama has made this [healthcare] a personal crusade now ... As we can see it really is about him. He is arrogant and he's adamant that he's going to get this passed ... He's trying everything, even the so-called God card. If you love God, he tells us, then it's your duty to vote this healthcare bill in ... They're taking away God's first gift to man. Our free will."

“As a senator and presidential candidate, Obama routinely tore into the Patriot Act as if it was worse than the Espionage Act of 1917. Now, not only is he using the Patriot Act to spy on, well, pretty much everyone, his Justice Department actually used the Espionage Act to label a journalist a possible co-conspirator in espionage. But after the schadenfreude wears off, the question remains: Is this bad policy? ... After every terrorist attack, everyone always asks, ‘Why didn’t the government connect the dots?’ Well, what the NSA is doing is connecting dots. ... I don’t have much confidence in this administration. But I don’t have an abundance of confidence in government generally. That’s one of the things I love about America: The default position is to be skeptical of government, no matter who’s in charge. ... The arrival of ‘big data’ ... creates opportunities for government (and corporations) that were literally unimaginable not long ago. ... Just because government could, in theory, poison people doesn’t mean it shouldn’t, in practice, inoculate people. But we’re in uncharted territory, and a healthy dose of old-fashioned American skepticism seems warranted, no matter who’s in charge.” — Jonah Goldberg

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