Sen. Udall gave domestic surveillance a thumbs up in 2011

This weekend, Colorado’s Democratic Senator Mark Udall co-authored an op-ed for the Washington Post calling for an end to domestic surveillance activities – the very activities that he, himself, voted for. Udall must think that by repeating the same falsities over and over again, it will make them true.  As the Peak reported earlier this year, Udall is trying his darnedest to reposition himself as a “privacy watchdog” (with the help of Democratic spokeswoman Denver Post reporter Allison Sherry), but sadly the facts don’t work in Udall’s favor.  This is what we wrote in May about Udall’s activities:

“In 2011, as we reported, Udall pulled a very public 180 on privacy issues.  In March 2011, he published a diatribe on Huffington Post talking about how he couldn’t support three tenets of the Patriot Act: roving wiretaps, business record access (aka the “215″ orders)  and so-called “lone wolf” wiretapping.  Sure, sounds good, except that he voted for these three pieces in H.R. 514 just one month before.  The funniest part of the whole thing?  H.R. 514 only dealt with these three issues.”

Here is what he said in his op-ed this weekend:

“We have had concerns about domestic surveillance authorities for several years. Through our oversight work on the Senate intelligence committee, we have become convinced that the government needs to scale back overly intrusive surveillance activities to better protect Americans’ constitutional privacy rights and that this can be done while protecting U.S. national security. We have not been able to fully engage the public on these issues because the executive branch insisted on keeping its interpretation of the law secret.”

Now Udall throws President Obama under the bus?  Now that we’re stuck with him for another three years?  Where was this information a year ago?  And, speaking of the past, which years was Udall so concerned about domestic surveillance?  Surely not in 2011 when he voted for it?

That the U.S. government may spy on its citizens is a problem, and Coloradans deserve real answers, but will we ever get them from Sen. Mark Udall?  These are the questions that the media (not just us) should be asking and isn’t.  Sen. Udall owes Colorado an explanation for his 2011 vote.