Get FISA Right

Get FISA Right conference call Wednesday: notes and download info here.

The winning ideas were accepted on behalf of the Presidential Transition Team by Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media and the person who oversees our second-favorite website, Change.gov. Macon then addressed the attendees of the event, which included nonprofit leaders and grassroots activists, and spoke about the importance the administration will place on citizen-driven efforts like Ideas for Change.

– change.org Managing Editor Josh Levy, on the Blog for Change.

change.org’s press event on Friday featured some great speakers and got some nice press, for example Diego Graglia’s Immigrant Students, DREAM Act Supporters Hoping Obama Will Take Up Their Cause on Feet in 2 worlds, Nancy Scola’s Ideas for Change Settles on a top 10 on techPresident (which has the vote totals for the top ten finishers), and Prerna’s Undocumented Students Raise Voices Online for DREAM Act in New American Media (a great description of how our allies the DREAM Activists approached the competition).  Get FISA Right’s Thomas Nephew was there in-person and discussed it on newsrackblock.com in We’re Number 5!  We’re Number 5!

Yay us!  And there’s a lot of ways we can build on this … discussion starts below.

At this point, though, the top priority is to take a break, enjoy the Inauguration, and recharge yourself.   At least in SF, where I’m spending the weekend and the weather’s beautiful, it seems like everybody’s got a spring in their step — and that should go double for Get FISA Right.  Congratulations both to us, and to President Obama!  So, please, take it easy for the next couple of days … I’m going to be doing that too, so other than a couple of blog posts, expect to hear a lot less from me.

Macon Phillips, director of new media for the Obama transition team, thanked the group for its efforts. “A lot of people in the transition have been paying attention to Change.org and are very interested,” he said.

(Obama’s transition site, Change.gov, is easily confused with Rattray’s group, but Change.org actually is older.)

— Frank Greve and David Coffee Progressives offer Obama their top 10 ideas for change in the  Miami Herald

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With a late rush,  Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties squeaked into the #5 position in the change.org’s Ideas for Change in America competition with 12285 votes!

Alas, even though our other endorsement Bob Fertik’s Appoint a Special Prosecutor for the Crimes of the Bush Administration picked up over 500 votes this morning, it appears to have fallen heartbreaking short by just 19 votes.   Still, overall, wow, what a huge success for Get FISA Right — and civil liberties!

Just think about it: despite virtually no help from the progressive blogosphere or 501(c)3s, we more than held our own against some really tough competition: big mailing lists, political allies.*   It’s an incredible validation of the power of our grassroots approach and social network advocacy.  Yay us!  And it’s yet another clear sign that no matter what they think in Washington and the mainstream media, Americans do see the Constitution and the rule of law as a priority right up there with health care, peace, sustainability, and drug law reform.

So thanks to everybody who was a part of this.  Once again, I’d especially like to acknowledge Democrats.com and DreamActivist.org for including us in their last-minute mailings … it made a big difference.  Neocons’ worst nightmare, indeed!  Thanks also to Jason Rosenbaum of The Seminal for a big endorsement this morning.  Within Get FISA Right, it was definitely a team effort, so thanks all around — with extra thanks to  Thomas and Patrick who really stepped forward in the last 24 hours.

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Bob Fertik’s idea is within 250 votes of the #10 spot in the change.org (not .gov) Ideas for Change competition, with only 90 minutes left!

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/appoint_a_special_prosecutor_for_the_crimes_of_the_bush_administration

please vote now if you haven’t already; forward on to your friends; post on blog threads; etc. etc.

thanks!

jon

PS: our idea’s up to #6 and closing in on #5. so for the next 90 minutes, please prioritize accountability!

Update, 4:30 PM: we finished #5.  thanks to all for your help!  more here.

The voting ends Thursday at 2 p.m. Pacific time in the change.org’s Ideas for Change competition, and with the “merge” between the drug war and legalization ideas throwing things into a tizzy, anything can happen.    Bob Fertik’s Appoint a Special Prosecutor for the Crimes of the Bush Administration is up to #12 .  Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties is currently #7,  thanks to links in mailings from Bob at Democrats.com and DreamActivist.*

It’s far from over.   Bob’s only 660 votes out of the top 10, and there at least 7000 votes up for grabs.  And with less than 700 votes separate the #5 idea from #9,  if any of the ideas farther down the list suddenly get hot — and/or start merging — it could be a very close finish.  As calibration, yesterday, Appoint Secretary of Peace in Department of Peace and Non-Violence got over 5000 votes, shooting from #10 up to #2.

So while it’s great we’re in #6 (yay us!  and thanks again, Bob and DreamActivist — as well as  Jason Rosenbaum of The Seminal, who just endorsed us), we need to roll up our virtual sleeves one more time …

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