Get FISA Right

We’ll be holding our latest Get FISA Right conference call and online chat May 4 at 6 pm PST. Here is the meeting page, and if you can please say hi in the chat and/or provide any ideas you have for goals or agenda items!

Call 1-219-509-8111, Access Code: 705723

Energy has been very high on our Organizing for America (previously MyBarackObama.com) email lists, and it bodes for quite a call to harness that passion as we strategize for the fight ahead.

By: Harry Waisbren

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee has a new report on the broad yet ideologically diverse coalition of over thirty organizations that has come together to put a stop to this blatant example of “security theatre”.

They have already filed a formal petition with the Department of Homeland Security, and the timing is especially important as evidence comes to light showing that the privacy safeguards don’t work while the devices just are not very effective.

The organizations contend that the body scanners are not effective and are not designed to detect the type of powdered explosive that was involved in the December 25 incident. They also say that the privacy safeguards do not work and that the body scanners violate sincerely held religious belief.

Margaret Fung, Executive Director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), said: “The use of full body scanners, without any clear alternative procedure, has violated and will continue to violate the civil rights of Muslims and other religious groups. We hope the Department of Homeland Security will reconsider its policies and act quickly on this petition.”

The groups contend that body scanner systems are “uniquely intrusive” and subject all travelers to an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. They also say that the Department of Homeland Security failed to comply with the Privacy Act when it did not inform the public about this new system that would collect personal information. And they say that the Chief Privacy Officer violated the law when she approved the program.

Chip Pitts, President of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), said “The program should be suspended. The body scanners don’t work for the purposes claimed and actually harm true security by diverting scarce resources and offending allies and populations critical for genuine intelligence.”

Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, said, “The government’s use of invasive imaging technologies strays beyond both the limits of what is constitutionally permissible and the agencies’ representation of their own capacity.”

The 30 organizations who have signed this petition include the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR), the Center for the Study of Responsive Law (CSRL), the Liberty Coalition, and Public Citizen.

Certainly a very worthy effort, as “security theater” encompasses far too many of the privacy degrading policies our government has enacted—a Bush administration course that we continue to encourage President Obama to change.

I find it particularly unfortunate that Pitts’ point on how body scanners do not  “work for the purposes claimed and actually harm true security by diverting scarce resources and offending allies and populations critical for genuine intelligence” could be very easily applied to oh so many controversial civil liberties infringing policies.

Our country deserves actual security, and we just can not afford this sort of harmful stage play.

UPDATE: audio is now available here.

By: Harry Waisbren

Today, Chip Pitts, a human rights lawyer and President of BORDC, is presenting on technology’s threat to privacy at UT Dallas as part of National Library Week. This kind of expert commentary is absolutely vital to educating the citizens of our country, and the promotional material alone is valuable as Pitts clearly explains just how much is at stake:

We are getting to the point in history, with powerful, miniaturized surveillance cameras and other storage devices and databases, where our lives are continuously surveilled in secret and the data is copied, stored, shared and used with few constraints. The resulting power and control raises unprecedented risks of true totalitarianism even beyond anything in Orwell’s 1984.

It is quite daunting to even contemplate how much “surveillance, social networking and targeted behavioral marketing all put privacy under attack as never before.” However, it is quite comforting for me on a personal level when I receive confirmation that people like Pitts understand that this issue, more than any other perhaps, is as transpartisan as one could possibly be:

The truth is that privacy and other fundamental human rights transcend ‘conservative’ or ‘progressive’ ideologies and are the mark of open, prosperous, safe, secure, and successful societies. This presentation will be nonpartisan and should appeal to attendees ranging from Tea Party supporters to progressives, as well as readers, librarians, business people and the general public.

The notion of appealing to Tea Party supporters may be particularly controversial to progressives and Obama-supporters in general, yet when it comes to civil liberties it is an integral one to be addressed. The Tea Party is not a monolith of an organization, and despite the myriad of reasons to be cautious about engagement, the Libertarian Ron Paulian contingent especially holds promise to be good faith partners in preventing unwarranted government intrusion into the private lives of American citizens.

I will be writing more about the Tea Party with a focus on these Ron Paul supporters soon enough (did you know they held the first tea party in 2007 after literally dumping tea into the Boston Harbor?).  For now, though, I want to encourage everyone to show support to people like Pitts that bring this Patriotic message to as broad an audience as possible.

If Orwell’s 1984 is upon us, surely the entire country should be warned at least, and it is absolutely essential for us to bring as many good faith partners into the fold to fight back as we possibly can…

UPDATE: video of Pitt’s lecture, Privacy and Technology: Protecting Autonomy in a Transparent World, available here.

By: Harry Waisbren

Big news on the FISA front and to civil libertarians at large, as District Court Judge Vaughn Walker concludes that not only was the NSA wiretapping program illegal, but that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) “should be given more weight than the state secrets privilege.”

Walker ruled that government investigators illegally wiretapped phone conversations from the Islamic charity, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, and two American lawyers. Marcy Wheeler explains:

Walker is basically saying, “Well, government, if you won’t give us any evidence to prove you legally wiretapped al-Haramain, and given all the evidence they’ve presented proving they were wiretapped, then they win!”

Marcy provides further analysis explaining why the Department of Justice is likely to accept Walker’s ruling, extrapolating on why she thinks he “crafted his ruling to give the government a big incentive not to appeal the case.”

If this ruling stands, al-Haramain will get a ruling that the wiretapping was illegal. The government will be directed to purge any records it collected from its databases (I’ll explain in a later post why I think this will present some problems). And it’ll be asked to pay a fine, plus legal fees. But the fines, at least ($100 per day per day of illegal wiretapping) might end up being a relative pittance–tens of thousand or hundreds of thousand of dollars. Sure, there will be punitive fines and legal fees for four years of litigation. But the government was happy to settle Hatfill and Horn for millions, why not have this be done for the same range of millions?

What al-Haramain won’t get–unless it litigates some of the other issues in the case, which likely canbe dismissed with State Secrets–is access to what the government was doing. Or details of how it came to be wiretapped illegally.

I’m betting that the government will be willing to accept the ruling that it illegally wiretapped al-Haramain in exchange for the ability to leave details of how and what it did secret, leaving the claim of State Secrets largely intact.

Hmmm, doesn’t seem like precisely the sort of accountability-inducing victory that true civil libertarians from across the political spectrum are hoping for. Then again, it certainly does seem like a positive step on the whole, and we have had far too few of those lately!

For more analysis, you can check the clip of Keith Olbermann interviewing James Risen of the New York Times about this below:

By: Harry Waisbren

Our latest Patriot Act and FISA call and online chat went very well as we further discussed how to set up our foundation for the long haul, and what we need to strategically do to become increasingly effective.

In that vein, Sally published a post on our new mission and vision statements that is very worthwhile to check out, and you can find other key takeaways from the call below:

• Mark discussed the resurgence of Organizing for America during the healthcare fight, and he has continued to keep us updated as far as they go. He was very impressed with their recent work, and generally has received the impression that there is a recognition about the mistakes made in regards to the social network. We’ll continue monitoring this as closely as we can, and would love ideas (and especially help) to ensure our OFA presence (or whatever social network they move to) thrives!
• Mark also got a hold of staffers for both Judiciary committees and was told to expect nothing legislatively until the next couple of months, if ever, before the election.
• Bob brought up the pending retirement of one of the FISA fight’s earliest champions, Sen. Chris Dodd, and questioned whether his concluding senatorial career and desire for a lasting legacy could be leveraged into an even greater level of championship in his dwindling time in office. Mark is researching Dodd’s FISA speeches from the senate floor, and generally this could be something we pay increasing attention to as we strive for new proponents with backbones and guts on this issue!
• Bob also relayed a report from the ACLU on data mining that “indicates the NSA has effectively revived the Orwellian Total Information Awareness domestic-spying program that was banned by Congress in 2003.” Clearly, something for us to keep in mind as well…
• We discussed the Tea Party movement and the recent slew of racist tirades and series of threats and acts of violence that have followed the conclusion of the health care debate. Jim also provoked discussion of this within the OFA mail listserv, and it is something for us to take very seriously given our continuing efforts to reach across the aisle to likeminded libertarians. The key for us is to find those who we can work with in good faith whose primary concerns relate to civil liberties and the constitution, but we must not be naive to the existence of the radical elements that have become increasingly empowered and enflamed who do not share our democratic values of liberty for all.
• The connection of equality to civil liberties could especially come to ahead given the diversified coalition the BORDC is working to establish through their local initiatives. We need to ensure we are welcoming to any and every ethnicity and demographic group in general, which is why I personally am so excited to see the next steps from the BORDC!
• Lastly, post-meeting, Bob wrote a few comments asking questions about the future of Get FISA Right and citing the Facebook meeting stats of attendees vs maybe attendees as a rationale for dissolving our organization in the name of pragmatism. To this point, although we all should recognize the degree of disillusionment that has flourished in the wake of Obama’s capitulation both before the election on FISA and this past winter on the Patriot Act, I disagree wholeheartedly with the suggestion that we look for other organizations to take us in and that there are any irredeemable signs of organizational weakness. This is because, more than anything, we are a community, one that began on the MyBO list serv but has since been spread across the spectrum both in terms of our communications structures as well as the diversity of our differing ideologies. We are a community that has been meeting consistently and continually progressing, all while staying on the cutting edge of new media activism to do anything we can to push this issue into mainstream political discourse—-as we did before! Our numbers have ebbed and flowed in terms of participants and effort extended to the cause, mostly reflected by the legislative calendar, and although I completely understand Bob’s frustration, I think we should remember why Get FISA Right is a different organization from the other ones doing fantastic work, take stock in what we have achieved, and strategize for the fights ahead accordingly.

Thanks to Bob and Mark for joining the meeting, to Salli for posting our mission and vision statements, and Jim for instigating post-meeting conversation on the list serv, and to the entirety of our community for your attention, perseverance, and support in this effort!

By: Sallijane

At our March 10th conference call, the participants voted that the Mission and Vision statements were ready for prime time.  Thus, everyone reading this is cordially requested to spread the word loud and far, town criers all.

Who we are
We are a proud group of informally affiliated individuals who supported President Obama during his candidacy in large part because of his call for hope and a new kind of politics.

Vision Statement
Our vision is one of a United States that is both free and secure. We see a United States in which the ordinary citizen is afraid neither of the government, despite its ability to monitor internal affairs responsibly, nor of his or her neighbors—an America in which every citizen understands that in all just wars, people are required to sacrifice some things, but they are never required to sacrifice their natural rights, protected—not given—by the Constitution of the United States of America. Our view is of a United States in which citizen and government vigilance does not involve destroying basic Constitutional protections.

Mission Statement
Our ultimate mission is to restore the fundamental Constitutional basis to United States national security laws, so that the inherent liberties of citizens are protected from government intrusion—for example, unregulated surveillance, improper invasion of personal privacy, and unacceptable limits to freedom of expression—as intended by the Bill of Rights without compromising duly authorized actions of federal agencies.

We’re holding our next Patriot Act and FISA organizing call this Wednesday at 4:00 PM PST / 7 PM EST. Here is the meeting page, and please feel free to take full advantage of our online chat pre-meeting!

Dialin: 1-219-509-8111 Access code: 705723

This week we will be focusing on grassroots activism amidst our efforts to re-establish our mission and communication mechanisms, all in order to increasingly reflect what we have learned about utilizing new media to impact tangible, on the ground change.

By: Harry Waisbren

Another very successful organizing meeting and online chat! You can read through our transcript here, and as usual can read through the key takeaways below:

• We have decided to hold bi-weekly meetings instead of weekly to maintain and sustain energy over the long haul. If something bigger comes up though, we’ll switch up based on events.
• A variety of team members are taking more of a lead through our communications channels as “faces of Get FISA Right”. Special thanks to Sally for taking initiative and offering to make the polls for our calls as well as getting more involved on our blog (her first post on our Mission and Vision statements is upcoming) and OFA mailing list, to Mark for offering to take more of a lead on OFA (and the blog potentially as well), and to Jim for helping more with Facebook. We still need more volunteers to step up though (particularly with Twitter), so please let us know if you have any interest!
• Jim has taken the lead offering advice on how we could leverage Patriot’s Day as an event to support our issues. He has offered to attend the festivities in Boston (where it is primarily located), and Harry and Ben are going to meet to discuss feasibility of something in Wisconsin (as well as WI civil liberties activism in general). We need grassroots supporters to step up though here as well, so let us know if you are in the Boston or Wisconsin areas especially (where Patriot’s day holds the most salience) and/or are generally interested in taking part!
• We continued our longstanding discussion about how to incorporate libertarians sensibilities and Tea Party activists working in good faith into our coalition. In particular for Patriot’s Day, we found that Second amendment activists could be a sweet spot for collaboration.

Thanks to Sally, Brandon, Mary, Ben, Korkie, Mark, Jim, Jon (in the online chat) for taking part, and to everyone else paying attention. We’re gearing up for the long haul, and the continued energy and fortitude from our group (especially new leaders) is absolutely inspiring!

Join us Weds, March 10 at 2:30 PM PST / 5:30 PM EST for another organizing call and online chat.

Dialin: 1-219-509-8111, Access code: 705723

We will be discussing our Mission and Vision Statements, going over ideas/concepts/coalition members/dates for potential events, and coaching team members on how to use the distribution center to access communications channels.

You can check the Key Takeaways post from our last call for an update on where we are at, and we hope to see you on the call/in the chat Wednesday!

By: Harry Waisbren

Our latest call entails some very disappointing news, as the Patriot Act has been extended for another year without reforming the three integrally needed changes. It is difficult to see a sliver of positivity from this, but it exists in the mere fact that it is only a year extension, and the need for our continued effort within this fight continues.

In that vain, we spent the bulk of the call discussing how we can ensure that our effort remains sustainable amidst this extension. You can read through the transcript here, and below you will find the key takeaways from the call that specify how we might best be able to do this:

• Our greatest opportunity to impact the legislation may be after the 2010 elections in November or December, as fear of negative attacks is being cited as the primary rationale for Democratic inaction on this issue. On the flipside, if we are able to insert our issue into a few of these key races, the potential for us to impact the legislation increases that much more…
• We have been working on our mission statement on the wiki, and there are discussion threads at the bottom of the page going over the changes where you can let us know what you think!
• The regular meetings we are holding are cited as being absolutely necessary for holding our diversified coalition together, however, we need to be more strategic about how we can continue them (as well as the improving nature they have exemplified) as we move forward. Specifically, we are asking for others to step up and help promote the event through our various channels (including email lists, Facebook events and messages, Twitter, etc.). We’re working on a system to organize and promote these meetings in a more collaborative fashion, but if you are willing to help out, please let us know as we are actively recruiting participants to take small pieces of the larger effort needed to coordinate these calls and online chats!
• As the 2010 and 2012 elections near, we see a greater opportunity to leverage Organizing for America (previously My.BarackObama.com), or whatever social networking service utilized to coordinate Obama  supporters, in our efforts to make real our hopes for change.
• We are discussing holding bigger events, and are contemplating a few different time frames. Jim likes the concept of an April event to coincide with “Patriot Day”, a variety of members would like to hold an event on 9/11 (which would coincide with Tea Party events), and Ben Masel and Jon both like the idea of an October 12 event on the anniversary of the Patriot Act.
• Ben also made the point that, considering the limited impact we can make on the Patriot Act in the meantime, we should broaden our scope, and specifically it may be time to push for a revisit of the wiretap act to add both video surveillance and location tracking.

Thanks to Mark, Jim, and Ben for joining the call, to Jon for joining the online chat, and the anyone else following along! We have to take our lumps in stride, and continue to play the long game to ensure that the dream of America will be…