Get FISA Right

Let’s use this thread for final discussion over whether or not our group should sign on to the International Action Center’s letter to Stop FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW: Condemn the FBI Raids and Harassment of Anti-War and International Solidarity Activists.

We first introduced potentially endorsing the letter in our last update post, and now we can move to look at the pro/con arguments made before finalizing whether we sign or not with a vote.

By: Harry Waisbren

Day 1 of our fundraising push for Feingold is over, with initial returns of 10 donations for a total of $371. This is  a modest sum, but in just a day we are over a third of the way to our $1,000 goal, and any donation is help that our constitution’s best ally in the Senate wouldn’t have otherwise had!

I just made a donation, and I must admit, I couldn’t be prouder to do so. I’m biased, though, because Sen. Feingold is my state’s Senator, and I happen to be a particularly proud Wisconsinite at that. Past mere state pride though, my close proximity to his leadership growing up really did have an impact on me. This was especially the case going to school at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where the power of his example runs deeply in the values of the city at large.

In fact, reading an old article I wrote about him for The Badger Herald reminded me just how much I was inspired by Feingold’s passion then…and how little has changed since. Then as now, Feingold: political rarity in today’s world.

As a progressive Wisconsinite, I often feel spoiled by the quality leadership emanating from U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold’s office. Mr. Feingold is that rare sort of politician, from any political party, who is truly willing to stand strong behind his principles no matter the political efficacy of the situation.

Ouch…Given Feingold’s current constraints, the intro to my article hits pretty close to home, quite literally for me in fact. This isn’t to say that he would be in a better situation politically if he would stand up any less resolutely for his principles, just that I still feel that spoiled to have this rare sort of politician as my Senator.

How many politicians can we reasonably say stand as firmly behind their principles, no matter the political efficacy of the situation, as Feingold does? I’d go so far to say that there aren’t any politicians today that have proven this as concretely as he has. When things get the darkest for the rule of law in contemporary America, he always seems to be the politician civil libertarians of all stripes end up thanking the most profusely, and this is a big part of why I so proudly call myself a #FeingoldDem.

So if you can, send a reward to Feingold for putting patriotism over politics. Even if you aren’t a Democrat, it will make you feel good to support a politician who actually does this, rather than merely talks about it. Isn’t that an example we wish every politician would follow—-and wouldn’t you feel proud to support this kind of politician when they need it most?

By: Thomas Nephew

If you haven’t checked your inbox yet, go have a look now — for an email titled “Russ Feingold needs our help *now*!”

Fundraising drive status;
click through to donate!

We want to raise at least $1,000 for Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI).  Why?  As our email — announced here yesterday and developed jointly by Thomas Nephew, Harry Waisbren, and others — puts it:

As a supporter of getting FISA right again, and of repealing the PATRIOT Act, we probably don’t have to tell you Russ Feingold is our best ally in the Senate.   National security and human rights advocates have had to develop separate scenarios for the post-election period, depending on whether or not Russ is re-elected. One activist tells us “Even if Democrats hold the Senate, if Russ Feingold is not among them, the dynamic (and the White House, internalizing the message that “civil liberties don’t sell”) will tack demonstrably to the right.”

It’s absolutely critical we help Russ out as much as we can.

If you haven’t already — please give now!! Senator Feingold is facing well-financed opponent and — (no) thanks to Citizens United — a tidal wave of uncontrolled campaign advertising by other groups.  We need to have Russ’s back:

• Russ Feingold was the only senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act, presciently warning, “I am also very troubled by the broad expansion of government power under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. […] ….the government can apparently go on a fishing expedition and collect information on virtually anyone. All it has to allege in order to get an order for these records from the court is that the information is sought for an investigation of international terrorism or clandestine intelligence gathering. That’s it.”
• Senator Feingold’s principled stand against the PATRIOT Act gained him allies in the effort to block the Military Commissions Act in 2006. Speaking in opposition, Feingold said : “Under this legislation, some individuals, at the designation of the executive branch alone, could be picked up, even in the United States, and held indefinitely without trial and without any access whatsoever to the courts. …why would we turn our back on hundreds of years of history and our nation’s commitment to liberty — particularly when there is no good reason to do so?”
• Senator Feingold has worked with President Obama, but has called Obama to account when necessary. Feingold produced recommendations doubling as a scorecard for evaluating Obama’s performance on the rule of law in his first hundred days in office. The senator was among the first to criticize the Obama administration’s overuse of state secrets privileges — giving the Obama administration “Grade: D | Status: Troubling”
• And of course, Senator Feingold was at the forefront in fighting against the FISA Amendment Act ratifying lawbreaking by the Bush administration, joining Senator Dodd in proposing an amendment to keep the telecom companies on the hook for assisting illegal surveillance. Feingold: “…even as the administration sought and obtained broad new authorities to collect communications of Americans, the administration refused to even consider when it might be violating the Constitution. If the administration can’t assure us that they respect the Constitution, Congress needs to step in.”

Again — please give what you can, even give a little more than you planned to.  And share this with your friends and followers on Facebook  and Twitter (hashtag #feingolddem); when you donate, there will be buttons for spreading the word.

Let’s rally for Russ!

By: Harry Waisbren

Hey everyone, checking in with three different Get FISA Right updates for you:

1. First, Sally instigated a great rehashing of how our group functions by making a suggestion for a petition for us to sign (more on that below) within an email thread, and asking how our group comes to decide on supporting initiatives.

I clarified to her that Get FISA Right is a crowdsourcing project, in which there isn’t a single leader/s from the top down dictating. Rather, if the group collectively decides on something, it can/should happen from the ground up! In practice, what this has meant is that individuals have taken the initiative on projects they care about and have ran with them, inspiring others to a consensus if it is to become something Get FISA Right at large is to support.

Now, there are certainly leaders specifically facilitating this kind of communication and processes, but it’s not our role necessarily to decide heavy handedly which petitions we sign and such. Furthermore, we always could use more people stepping up and taking a lead on facilitating the group coming to these decisions as well, so please let us know if you would like to help!

From there, Jon responded with some more details of our recent history of doing this in practice, which you will find summarized below in case anyone would like to suggest an issue later on that they would like to promote in this fashion (or if you are merely curious about how we work):

• Start with a blog post introducing the issue to the group
• Move on to a discussion thread a few days later, where we try to summarize the best pro and con arguments that were presented
• Present a voting thread of some kind a day or two after that to come to a final decision

2. Secondly, the issue Sally brought up was whether or not our group should sign on to the International Action Center’s letter to Stop FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW: Condemn the FBI Raids and Harassment of Anti-War and International Solidarity Activists!

Sally sent out an email about this last week, and this post will further do as our  blog post introducing it. Next step is to let us know—in either the comments of this post or in Sally’s email thread—what you think. After that, we’ll go through the pro and con arguments, and then we can vote.

3. Lastly, Thomas has taken the lead inspiring members of our group within different email threads to further come to Russ Feingold’s defenses. Mark had previously led our support for him with emails in advocating participation in the senator’s highly successful “Cheddar Bomb”, and Thomas is likewise leading another donation push (here’s the link to a wiki page he set up to craft the first email of this initiative),

Lot going on, and more to come!