If we’re going to have any significant impact on the Patriot Act and FISA debates in the rest of 2010, we’ll need to build on whatever momentum we’ve achieved so far, learn about what has and hasn’t worked, and continue to organize. The goals for our next phone call include an update on the legislative situation, pooling knowledge about learnings from SJC battle and upcoming activism plans, and deciding on our next steps.
Between now and then, let’s continue the discussion that Sally, Gavin, and Harry have started in Questioning Obama and the Patriot Act. Get FISA Right’s claim to fame is our dialog last summer with then-Senator Obama; now is the perfect time to continue it.
Please to use this thread to share any thoughts on lessons learned and next steps. The first comment has some thoughts by Marcy Wheeler to kick things off.
Disturbingly, Obama Administration officials played a significant behind the scene role in opposing stronger civil liberties protections, directly contradicting Obama’s positions as a Senator.
Marcy Wheeler has also been covering Obama’s role in the watering down of the Patriot Act, and it is something we at Get FISA Right should be taking very seriously.
Previously, I posted about Attorney General Holder’s discussion of the “conversation to be had” about modifications for civil liberties concerns. Our open letter to Obama last summer turned precisely into this sort of conversation through his follow up post directed to us, and his continuing support for such unsupportable actions has me contemplating whether we should go down this route again—-if only to make sure he knows we are paying attention.
Commenter Sally G agreed with this notion and wrote:
Yes, I definitely think that we should follow up on the earlier discussion. The president (then candidate) explained his position quite clearly in the follow-up blog post, we expressed our support at the inauguration with the TV ads, and now that the tone seems to have changed, I think we have the right and responsibility that he gave us in that post. To paraphrase, he said that although we might respectively, grassroots activism was part of the reason for his success, and that he expected to be held accountable. So let’s draft a letter pointing out how administration actions today are in many ways the continuation of Bush’s policies that now-Pres. Obama himself warned us we could expect from John McCain. It is time that we asked him to deliver on the promises he made—especially after the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, which sets a high standard for his current and future actions.
I agree with her particularly about the Nobel Peace Prize providing an even greater impetus for beginning this conversation. Please provide your thoughts as well!
Emptywheel, aka Marcy Wheeler, of Firedoglake once again is covering the effort to fix the watering down of the Patriot Act in a comprehensive fashion.
The whole thing is disgusting: Obama sneaking these in in a last-minute classified briefing. Doing so under cover from Jeff Sessions (what? DiFi and Pat Leahy don’t want responsibility for this??). Pat Leahy letting that happen. A voice vote, so no one will ever hold Leahy and DiFi and Whitehouse and Franken and others responsible for doing this.
She follows up on this assessing a different “Sessions amendment” from Obama as well.
Wheeler posted further on how the Obama DOJ Declines to Support Legality of Bush Surveilance Program:
In short, once again the Obama Administration is, in yet another forum, adopting lock, stock and silencer fitted barrel the policy, tactics and arguments of the Bush/Cheney Administration to shield wholesale illegal and unconstitutional conduct by way of executive classification and secrecy.
Now, interestingly, these guys might not even qualify for the new language (or even the old language) in Section 215 allowing the FBI to now check all the hardware and beauty supply stores in Lake Elsinore for others who have been purchasing TATP precursors–unless the Nazi propaganda qualifies as “international terrorism.”
That’s the latest for now, but presumably she’ll have much more for us soon!
Marcy Wheeler has come out with a variety of posts today on the Patriot Act over at her Emptywheel blog hosted on Firedoglake.
First off, her liveblog of the hearing exemplifies her trailblazing in the medium. I doubt there is a better or more comprehensive report available. She followed that with a post confirming her initial hypothesis that our government is tracking hydrogen peroxide and acetone purchases mostly by “searching some subset of the country for their beauty, home improvement, and cleaning supplies.”
Next, she blogs about this Feingold video–which I posted about earlier here–highlighting the 17 second mark where Sen. Leahy presumably sighs, “Oh boy” in response. She followed this with another post about the contrast between Sen. Franken questioning David Kris about the 4th amendment to….voting to implement exactly what he was critiquing Kris for supporting:
Of course, two weeks later, Franken voted with eight other Democrats to continue to allow the government to collect information–things like shopping histories–about people without first identifying whose information they want to collect
In other words, it appears they may have started using Section 215s for something they had been using the illegal program for. And it appears that the March 2006 PATRIOT reauthorization, which was partly an add-on to the 2005 reauthorization in 2005 designed to overcome the filibuster that had started in response to the revelation of the program in December 2005, found ways to put some of the things they were doing into other parts of PATRIOT. Combo orders, for example, became regular parts of trap and trace devices.
All of which is a very vague way to say we probably ought to be thinking of four programs–Bush’s illegal domestic surveillance program and the PAA/FAA program that replaced it, NSLs, Section 215 orders, and trap and trace devices–as one whole. As the authorities of one program got shut down by exposure or court rulings or internal dissent, it would migrate to another program. That might explain, for example, why Senators who opposed fishing expeditions in 2005 would come to embrace broadened use of Section 215 orders in 2009.
She ends by citing an upcoming post that delves more deeply into this. In particular, I’m looking forward to hearing more about the concept of looking at these programs “as one whole.” Such an approach would de-wonkify our campaigns—making it easier to discuss civil liberties in universally understood, moral terms.
After today’s disappointingPatriot Act reauthorization vote, Sen. Feingold took to the Daily Kos to explain his perspective. He decried the nature of the committee’s debate, particularly the lockstep manner in which they followed the requests of the executive branch. In fact, he out and out questioned whether his fellow committee members understand their assignments:
It’s not the Prosecutors’ Committee; it’s the Judiciary Committee. And whether the executive branch powers are overbroad is something we have to decide. The only people we should be deferring to are the American people, as we try to protect them from terrorism without infringing on their freedoms.
The above excerpt links to the following YouTube video from the hearing, exemplifying Feingold’s exasperation at a pinnacle point where he made called his colleagues’ knowledge of the role of Judiciary Committee into question:
Despite his frustration, he asserted that this fight is not over sending the Democratic party a major gut check:
I appreciate Chairman Leahy’s efforts to achieve a compromise. And I hope to work with him and other members of this committee to make further improvements as this bill goes forward. In the end, however, Democrats have to decide if they are going to stand up for the rights of the American people or allow the FBI to write our laws. For me, that’s not a difficult choice.
Also of note in this post was an update that Feingold provided in which he offers a window into how his office handles new media campaigns:
I posted this in the comments, as well, but as always, thanks for reading and thanks for your comments on fixing the PATRIOT Act and other issues. As some of you know, what I typically do is have my staff print out the comments so I can be sure to read them all. So please post your questions, concerns and suggestions. We have a tough fight ahead of us on this and I appreciate the feedback this community offers.
It’s great news that he takes new media communities so seriously, and we should make sure to keep this in mind as we contemplate further how we can help this civil liberties champion!
The Patriot Act Reauthorization has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, 11-8, and is now moving on to the full Senate. There were certainly many disappointing aspects of the hearing, leading Julian Sanchez of the CATO institute at one point to describe–hopefully in jest–that his soul was slowly dying and Marcy Wheeler to decry the “BullSHIT!!!”
There were, however, some positive developments, including a passed amendment from Sen. Feingold requiring DOJ to discard illegally collected information from National Security Letters. Sen. Specter also voted the right way each and every time, and seems to be becoming an increasingly integral civil liberties advocate—something that is important regardless of how you feel about his upcoming primary with congressman Joe Sestak.
We’ll have much more to say about all of this soon of course. For now, check out our post-hearing Tweeting points, we’ll continue to relay any new developments, and a rounding thank you to everyone who joined in at our Patriot Act Action Hub!
We’ve got a chat room set up at http://bit.ly/oct8hearing where we’ll be following the hearing and the live-blogging — and possibly engaging in some last-minute activism. Please join us!
And speaking of last-minute activism, please consider posting this link and changing your Facbook status message to
We have phone numbers to all these senators on our landing page:
These are the Democratic committee members who, in concert with all of their Republican colleagues, voted against adding modest privacy protections that would have reined in the infamous “library records provision” and need to hear from you: Senators Leahy (D-VT), Kohl (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Schumer (D-NY), Kaufman (D-DE, Klobuchar (D-MN), Franken (D-MN) and Whitehouse (D-RI).
Cato’s Julian Sanchez examines — and absolutely destroys — the fear-mongering claims from Fox News about efforts to reform the Patriot Act and FISA, with a particular focus on Fox’s efforts to use the Zazi plot to justify the need for these powers.
Yeah, “absolutely destroys” sounds about right. You’d think the people petrified that Obama is a new Hitler would worry about his capacity to tap all of our communications…
Anyways, I also empathize with this lament from Sanchez:
I would love to be able to have the serious argument about whether and why safeguards or oversight should be structured a certain way, but PATRIOT boosters need to stop making the same tedious set of basic factual errors first…
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The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
If we’re going to have any significant impact on the Patriot Act and FISA debates in the rest of 2010, we’ll need to build on whatever momentum we’ve achieved so far, learn about what has and hasn’t worked, and continue to organize. The goals for our next phone call include an update on the legislative situation, pooling knowledge about learnings from SJC battle and upcoming activism plans, and deciding on our next steps. 
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