Taking stock of where we are and looking at next steps.
If you’ve got suggested topics, please leave them as comments here!
Organizing call: Sunday 10 p.m. Eastern
June 22, 2013
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Posted by jdp23
GFR June 16 phone conference
June 19, 2013 This will be more of a general synopsis of the meeting than the detailed one for the June 12th meeting. Detailed “PiratePad” notes are here; links mentioned during the conversation are gathered here. Please feel free to use comments below to contribute to this conversation!
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Attendees: John Bachir, Sally Gellert, jon pincus, Harry Waisbren, John Quarterman, Jim Burrows, Thomas Nephew
Catching up: John and Jim updated others on what they’re up to (NSF project on spam; communications systems for first responders, VP of Engineering at Silent Circle, respectively). Both remain active in writing about and/or being active about surveillance and other issues.
Outreach: Harry is in touch with organizers of ‘I Stand with Edward Snowden‘ rallies in NY. Deciding next steps. Harry’s suggesting a similar path to what they did with SOPA — NY Tech Meetup getting people involved who wouldn’t be otherwise. Jon went to a few Restore the 4th meetings; a lot of energy, make almost exclusive use of Reddit. Thomas reported on the MCCRC/Washington Peace Center DC protest (video, some alternative media coverage).
Legislation: Propose we do what we did in the past: discussion on blog about whether we endorse, then phoning / writing congress / etc. 3 bills on the way:
- Merkley/Lee transparency bill
- Udall/Wyden data limitation
- Rand Paul’s Fourth Amendment Restoration Act
Corporate involvement in problem: FB and Microsoft released full # of government requests, and might be telling the truth. Latest technical speculation is that there’s a meta-data base in addition to PRISM, taking directly from providers; this could provide a lot of info without directly going to the companies. Marcy Wheeler also saw some quotes that show that they are getting this data under some other theory.
Continuing discussion of where could GFR add value: possibilities include… Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Thomas Nephew
Organizing call Wednesday 10 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Pacific
June 19, 2013Sorry for the short notice! The agenda is in http://piratepad.net/n8JPyBPJDb
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Posted by jdp23
Coalition visits Congressman Van Hollen to press surveillance reform
June 19, 2013Consider using the coalition letter mentioned below (Get FISA Right is a signatory) as a conversation starter with your Representative or Senators. Our meeting with Chris Van Hollen went quite well.
Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition
Representatives of local and national national civil liberties groups had a cordial and productive meeting with Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD-8) today as they promoted the sweeping surveillance reform and oversight agenda announced in a coalition letter earlier today.
The growing coalition includes the Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition (MCCRC) and over a hundred other civil liberties and civil rights organizations, including Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU, the Green Party, Get FISA Right, and many more.
Sue Udry (Defending Dissent, MCCRC), Thomas Nephew (MCCRC), Zainab Chaudry (Council on American-Islamic Relations-MD), and Robert McCaw (CAIR Government Affairs manager) discussed surveillance issues with Rep. Van Hollen and legislative aide Ben Cook for about a half hour at the Longworth House Office Building.
Representative Van Hollen noted that he’d voted against both the FISA Amendment Act and PATRIOT Act.* The Congressman shared the delegation’s concerns about “ambiguity, just the kind of uncertainty we’re…
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Posted by Thomas Nephew
NSA Gathers Far More Than Phone Data (Julian Sanchez)
June 19, 2013
FISA expert Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute discusses internet metadata and more.
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Posted by jdp23
Who Are We?
June 18, 2013As we regroup after 5 years, we think of our original description—a proud group of Obama supporters. Yes, we were!
We were because, at the end of President G. W. Bush‘s 2 terms, we had Hope; we wanted Change. The candidate expressed concern with, and a goal of ending, the ever-more-imperial presidency. We congratulated the president on his election—with a television ad that we ran in the Washington, D.C. area, saying in effect, “We continued to support you; please make good on your promises and fix the FISA Act.” Five years later,we mostly feel that the current administration has proved unworthy of our early support; we were too optimistic and trusting.
I wonder how many of us were comfortable enough with his record to support Mr. Obama in 2012? By March 2010, the group had changed enough to rewrite our mission statement; the new version described us as 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. I suspect that in the last presidential election, many of us were looking to Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, or another third-party candidate for real change. However, there was still some work being done to bring the Democrats back on board; in December 2011, some of us took to the Organizing for America offices to discuss the NDAA renewal with campaign volunteers (for instance, see https://getfisaright.wordpress.com/2011/12/).
Now, just 10 months later, the graphic image atop this blog is a disturbing map of metadata collection for analysis, by country, leaked to the world from the NSA’s Bountiful Informant program by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
So we ask, Who are we today? We had a poll here (for the record, 2 unafilliated, 1 each Libertarian, Occupier, and Other—who says we are not diverse? or unconventional?), but the poll’s wording really made it appear as though we were suggesting that we are our political-party identity. Not true, not even close to true—for all the polarization of late, for all the “Red Team/Blue Team” name-calling that goes on, we hearken back to the days when alliances were formed along lines of position on issues, not necessarily nor automatically in alignment with an individual’s party. We feel that that was a better way—and we call on our fellow citizens to demand it of those in and running for office.
2 Comments | Getting FISA right, NSA, planning, Uncategorized, updates | Tagged: Bountiful Informant, NSA, PRISM | Permalink
Posted by sallijane
Why The FISA Court Is Not What It Used To Be
June 18, 2013Why The FISA Court Is Not What It Used To Be
Few if any experts in the Bush or Obama administrations believe that the FISA court has the enforcement teeth it once had. Many of those teeth were pulled out by the 2001 Patriot Act and the 2008 amendments to the foreign intelligence surveillance law. For good or ill, as one expert put it, the court has been defanged, at least until and unless Congress decides to restore some of its powers.
Good article by Nina Totenberg of NPR.
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Posted by jdp23
Tuesday morning: NSA Director Keith Alexander to Testify at Open House Intelligence Committee Hearing
June 18, 2013National Security Agency (NSA) Director Keith Alexander will testify Tuesday in an open hearing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). The hearing is part of the continuing oversight the HPSCI conducts of the NSA, and an opportunity to discuss how the disclosed NSA programs protect Americans from terror attacks on US soil, and why the disclosure of that classified information aids our adversaries.
Date: June 18, 2013 (Tuesday)
Topic: How Disclosed NSA Programs Protect Americans, and Why Disclosure Aids Our Adversaries
Time: 10:00am – 12:00pm ET
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Posted by jdp23
GFR June 16 phone conference: NSA link roundup
June 17, 2013Here are a few links from Sunday evening’s Get FISA Right (GFR) phone conference, compiled from collaborative notes available here.
Legislation
- Merkley/Lee transparency bill http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/11/senators-proposal-would-force-secret-surveillance-into-open/
- Udall/Wyden data limitation http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/14/mark-udall-ron-wyden-nsa_n_3442054.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
- Rand Paul’s Fourth Amendment Restoration Act http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=838
- Leahy Restore Our Privacy Act http://www.sanders.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Restore%20Our%20Privacy%20Act.pdf
- Conyers and Amash House Bill: http://images.politico.com/global/2013/06/13/061313nsafinal.html
News roundups
- http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/bills-would-clip-nsas-wings-on-phone-data-92809.html (Friday June 14) and
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/06/17/how-far-is-too-far-for-nsa-and-what-is-congress-doing-this-week/
Activist links
- Last meeting’s notes (summary, detail)
- DC protest: http://dcdirectactionnews.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/capitol-police-harass-protest-against-nsa-prism-spying/
- GFR Facebook groups: https://www.facebook.com/groups/17961184023/
- GFR Google+ community: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105143096977144180596
- News roundup post from today: https://getfisaright.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/detailed-discussions-of-nsas-phone-and-internet-surveillance-a-roundup/
- Restore the 4th’s IRC channel: http://webchat.snoonet.org/restorethefourth
1 Comment | Getting FISA right, news, Uncategorized | Tagged: activism, NSA, surveillance, USA PATRIOT Act | Permalink
Posted by Thomas Nephew
GFR June 12 phone conference minutes
June 17, 2013Thomas Nephew, John Bachir, Jon Pincus, Harry Waisbren, politisal, and Shahid Buttar joined a phone conference earlier this evening to discuss the NSA/Snowden revelations, what to do about them, and how “Get FISA Right” might fit in to revitalized efforts to end warrantless electronic surveillance of all kinds. Here’s a summary of the conversation, informed by the excellent online notes taken by several of us as the conversation proceeded. Please use comments below to contribute to this conversation!
Overview
After we’d caught up a bit with each other, Jon summed up the new surveillance-related news: (1) the Verizon court order revealing Section 215 (PATRIOT Act) phone metadata trawls, (2) PRISM possibly a data mining or at least organizing system, (3) evidence of perjury to Congress via the “Boundless Informant” revelation showing US data collection (contradicting testimony by DNI James Clapper).
There’ve been a variety of reactions and repercussions. The story is followed closely overseas. Tech businesses are concerned this will damage US “cloud computing” companies because of NSA’s apparent ease of access. Closer to home, a demonstration is planned in Washington DC on Friday, in front of one of the Senate office buildings. Legal responses include a lawsuit by the ACLU and bills by Senators Merkley, Lee, and Paul, who also is discussing somehow bringing a case to the Supreme Court. A grassroots umbrella group called “Restore the 4th” is using Reddit to organize local demonstrations about the issue on Independence Day.
What does Get FISA Right bring to the table?
The discussion then turned to how Get FISA Right (GFR) could best contribute to the uprising around surveillance issues.
Politisal’s response: “history.” John noted that GFR grew out of what was the biggest Obama group by far – a group that was coming to terms with the fact that he is not on our side on this. (Some of this history, including a famous open letter to Obama, was detailed in an October 2010 retrospective by Harry.) Obama’s response to the open letter was to say “judge me by my actions.” Thomas noted, “we will” — but that while we need to acknowledge a reckoning with Obama, his observation is that people can turn off quickly if it becomes about Obama. “Moderates are giving me the time of day on this issue who usually don’t, but if it’s about Obama, then it becomes about sides and deteriorates.” Jon acknowledged that was a tightrope, but said we have a history and a brand, and were among the pioneers of activism in a social network setting. Harry considered it a case study in effective targeting of a political organization; he noted that 350.org is currently doing something similar: targeting OFA volunteers to inquire up the OFA chain about Keystone XL pipeline. (This is apparently resulting in many of those volunteers quitting.)
So that’s what we’ve done and perhaps inspired — but what unique traits do we bring to the table now? Some possible answers:
- loose organization: we could do things 501c3s couldn’t do, though organizations like EFF are more aggressive now.(Jon)
- good at getting press:, and anything that brings more press and reinvigorates the story when needed is useful.(Thomas)
- email lists: from the Obama campaign days and the next few years(Jon) narrow,
- focus: on telecom immunity or (Thomas) wider issue of warrantless surveillance; i.e., a little bit wonky
Some ideas:
- let the GFR blog become a forum for activists to tell what they’re doing — radically open up the blog to encourage posts, discussion, learning
- encourage 99% “Occupy” wearethe99percent.tumblr.com-style photo and/or video responses to stock questions: what have you got to hide? what my privacy means to me, etc. Harry is currently doing something like this with his “supervoters.org” organization: http://supervoters.org/campaigns/i-stand-with-edward-snowden/
- set up online teach-ins, e.g., Google hangouts, on topics of NSA, surveillance, PATRIOT and FISA Amendment Acts, etc; here’s an Occupy example.
- collaborate with “Restore the Fourth” reddit.com organizing around this issue
- …and more.
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Posted by Thomas Nephew
Get FISA Right 