Get FISA Right

By: Thomas Nephew

While the Citizens United/Moveon.org exchange between Feingold and Johnson was the highlight of Monday’s debate for me (see my Free speech for Me, Inc. but not for thee – the second Feingold-Johnson debate post), the Afghanistan/national security exchange was extremely interesting as well.

Let’s go to the transcript I’ve compiled; all time indications are for the online rebroadcast provided by the Wisconsin PostCrescent.com web site.

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About midway through the debate, journalist Pam Warnke posed the questions, “Can the US afford the current strategy abroad? What specific kinds of policies do you support that will bring about the successful conclusion to our military presence and also keep Americans safe?” Feingold responded that at a cost of a hundred billion dollars a year, no, we couldn’t afford the current strategy and recommended setting a timetable for withdrawal. Johnson by contrast, was very much against setting a timeline — and very much for bashing Feingold for allegedly “weakening” the U.S.:

Johnson (35:53): We do need to recognize that we are still under the threat of terrorism. Certainly what we’re trying to do Afghanistan is deny sanctuary for those terrorists. That’s where they launched the attacks on 9/11. And certainly we need to be mindful of where else they may be hiding. We need a very strong intelligence capability. And I’m not sure how Senator Feingold has tried to weaken our intelligence capability in his career (Feingold laughs).

Feingold parried the baseless attack easily — and notice how he did it:

Feingold (37:21): Well if I could respond to this notion that…
Moderator: Just a second Senator; Pam Warnke, you have a followup?
Warnke: With all of that being said, what does it mean to win Afghanistan?
Feingold: This has been the mistake of the last nine years. It isn’t about invading one country after the other, it’s about destroying an organization that’s present in many countries in the world. So it’s not about winning in Afghanistan, it’s about destroying Al Qaeda, wherever they might be.

And the notion that — Mr. Johnson, who I respect what he does in his business, but Ron, for five years I’ve been on the Intelligence Committee, and I’ve worked day and night to try to figure out exactly where this threat is. People in the military, people in the intelligence community consider me to be the person that’s worked the hardest to understand the threat of Al Qaeda in places like Africa. So the notion that you dismiss that as ‘weakening’ America? I’ll tell you something Ron, that’s just dead wrong and it’s unfair. …

What Johnson meant by ‘weakening intelligence’ was highly likely to be Feingold’s efforts to prevent gutting FISA’s due process and civil liberties protections with the FISA Amendment Act.

But Feingold’s response skipped over the (very valid) point that “hoovering up” every conceivable scrap of communication does little to advance the cause of anti-terrorist intelligence — instead of finding the needle, that just grows the haystack. Instead, Feingold emphasized actually finding the needle. That is liable to be just the kind of straightforward answer middle of the road Wisconsinites — and Americans — will accept.

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Great news on two fronts: first, the Feingold campaign’s internal polling shows Feingold now statistically tied with Johnson among “definite voters.” The reason appears to have to do with Johnson’s description of manufacturing decline in Wisconsin and elsewhere as “creative destruction” — a phrase that may earn him points at the next Ayn Rand book club meeting, but doesn’t sit so well with Wisconsinites actually trying to put food on the table.

Second, as you can see on the thermometer to the right, our fundraising drive has nearly reached our goal of $1500 for Russ! Now I think we can do even better than $1500, but that means we need to get there first. If yours is one of the 36(!!) donations so far — thanks so very much! If you haven’t — here’s your chance to put us over the top!

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Finally, you can help the Feingold campaign as a phonebanker — even from out of state — with GOTV calls already underway to supporters. To get more information, contact lemke@russfeingold.org or call 414-727-5682 for more information and to schedule your training conference call.

[crossposted from newsrackblog.com]

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!

By: SalliJane

In the city of Philadelphia, 223 years ago in 1787, the Constitutional Convention adopted the Constitution of the United States of America, the supreme law of the land.  Wikipedia describes it as “the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.”

The Preamble to the Constitution set out the goals and purposes of the fledgling government:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

After signing, the Constitution was ratified by each U.S. state in the name of “The People”, and the government began operations on March 4, 1791, as set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (i.e., the first ten amendments).

What is important to note in reflecting on these founding events is that there was reluctance to sign the document without that crucial group of ten amendments (twelve were already proposed; the second constrained Congress from raising its own salary; any raises were to take effect only in the next congress. That amendment was finally ratified more than 200 years later, in 1992).

Based on these concerns, James Madison noted that “I believe that the great mass of the people who opposed [the Constitution], disliked it because it did not contain effectual provision against encroachments on particular rights, and those safeguards which they have been long accustomed to have interposed between them and the magistrate who exercised the sovereign power: nor ought we to consider them safe, while a great number of our fellow citizens think these securities necessary” (cited in Wikipedia article above as footnote 33; emphasis added).

What is important to note is that none of our personal freedoms and rights are actually “Constitutional rights” rights given by the Constitution: our rights as citizens are inherent in nature, protected by the Bill of Rights, from encroachment by the federal (and, subsequent to the 14th Amendment, the state) government.

Today we find ourselves in a situation when many are unaware of the text of those crucial ten amendments, a time when many who hear the text of certain amendments reject them as too radical.  Yet these are the thoughts of the founders, those who had lived under a monarchy and decided to invent a better way (though based on centuries of English law [including the 1689 English Bill of Rights], the principles of the Enlightenment, and the Virginia Declaraion of Rights drafted by George Mason in 1776).

What is happening now?  The Obama administration has followed in the footsteps of its recent predecessors, asserting executive privilege when requesting secrecy, not just from the public, but from the other branches of government as well, for reasons of national security, accepting such concepts as assassination of citizens and extraordinary rendition (i.e., sending prisoners to countries with torture standards lower than our own, so that our government can ostensibly keep its hands clean while enabling other countries to extract the desired information with little or no oversight or restraint).

To quote Janine R. Wedel’s article “Shadow Elite: Warrantless Wiretap Case & Obama: Abuse of Executive Power?” in the April 2008 Huffington Post, reproduced on the High Road for Human Rights Web site.

In a broader way, Obama’s willingness to test the limits of executive authority, mirroring the defense strategy of the last White House in the warrantless wiretap case, underscores a fundamental truth about power. Once it’s deployed, it’s like toothpaste out of a tube: it’s not likely to find its way back in on its own volition. And with increasing executive power a worldwide trend, this trajectory looks even more ominous. That’s why vigilance is needed on any new assertions of executive authority, even under a President who insists that he will deploy his power more judiciously than the last.

So, in honor of Constitution Day 2010, I urge my fellow citizens to join Get FISA Right, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, High Road for Human Rights, and other like-minded groups as we take back our power from those who have seized too much control; to insist that the delicate framework of checks and balances set forth in 1787 is restored to the 21st-century equivalent, privacy in E-mails and on computers as it was in letters in the late 18th century, separation of church and state, protesting  data-mining by corporations and warrantless wiretaps by governments, just as in the days of our nation’s founding there were no physical searches of homes or persons allowed without a warrant from the judiciary.

By: Harry Waisbren

Another great conference call and online chat! You can read through the transcript over on our meeting page, or look to the key takeaways below:

• Lots of discussion on Sen. Feingold’s campaign, and the importance of him personally and the example he sets for civil libertarians of all stripes. We discussed and shared Glenn Greenwald’s interview of him, where he cites December as the next point when he imagines the Patriot Act will be brought up. There was group agreement that this is a campaign we should become more involved in…
• Jon brought up how Patriot Act reauthorization has to happen by around February, and there may be attempts to get it through in a lame duck session. If it turns into a route against Democrats in the midterms, a lame duck session may be better for civil libertarians, but regardless we should be preparing for a fight in December.
• We discussed different tools that we can use for online activism. Jon mentioned a new platform called if we ran the world, that he wrote about over on Tales from the Net. I brought up Jim Gilliam’s upcoming update to the exceedingly useful act.ly Twitter tool, which will be entitled pro.act.ly. Jim tweeted to me that it will be ready with a public beta in about 6 weeks, and I for one am waiting with baited breath!
• Broad discussion occurred about our group at large, both in terms of definitionally whether we can still call ourselves a group of Obama supporters, or fall into Jim’s suggested term of ‘current and former Obama supporters’. Furthermore, we went into the potential for increased coordination with or connection to BORDC, and what that might mean to our group—particularly in terms of pursuing an avenue where we would be falling under C3 status and would be unable to endorse and support candidates.

Thanks to Jon, Sally, and Jim for joining the call, and special thanks (and best wishes) to Mark for providing his detailed thoughts beforehand! Another great call, and more to come as actions reverberate from it.

We’ll be having our next call on at 5:30 pm PST this upcoming Wednesday. Here’s the dialin is: 1-270-400-2000 Access Code: 705723, and the meeting page.

On this call, we will be strategizing about the Patriot Act, and discussing Constitution day which is held on Sept. 17. As always, let us know if you have any other topic ideas or questions, and hope you can make the call!

By: Harry Waisbren

Our latest conference call and online chat was quite productive, as we focused on the tangible ways by which we could help out the BORDC and the effort they are spreaheading towards local ordinances on law enforcement, domestic surveillance, racial and religious profiling and immigration enforcement.

You can read through the call transcript on our meeting page, and can further find some of the key takeaways below:

• We began the call with a discussion of what Mark described as a “deliberate attempt by the right to distract us” that is sapping the energy from so many different efforts. The group agreed that this is particularly why local efforts at this time, where we can have more of an immediate impact with less resources required, could be that much more powerful amidst a longer term strategy.
• Shahid explained the significance of the model ordinance effort in Hartford, and updated us on the hearing on the bill next week. The proximity within “Lieberman’s backyard” is but one of the reasons why there is “hope it will lead to further interest elsewhere.” He further emphasized how such bills are vehicles for broad coalitions between Muslims, Arabs, Hispanics, Progressives and Libertarians—which bellies their potential.
• In terms of how GetFISARight can aid this effort, Shahid cited how our group’s mere existence represents a watermark where we were able to get tens of thousands to pay attention to these issues, and that this is a model we should certainly strive to replicate. Yet, in the meantime, there is many ways that we can further help not only as a group but as individuals, as there is a need for more local points of contact who are able to provide a feel for grassroots groups that could be reached out to. The BORDC could use introductions, and we’ll have more details soon about the best ways to refer them to our points of contact as we reach out on the local level. Yet this is certainly not the only way to help out, in fact, if you are willing to there are all sorts of ways to make a serious impact with their support. If you would like to have a call with a city council person about this bill, the BORDC could have someone on the call as well to help out. You could further be their primary local contact, as opposed to the BORDC being in front even. The goal is to use these reforms as vehicles to build the coalition, and “if anyone wants to be the face of that coalition, [the BORDC] would be happy to help.”
• Thomas asked a very good question through the chat about the specifics of what was at play in Hartford, which led into a discussion about the model to replicate such a scenario. The Hartford coalition is a diverse mix of allies including the grassroots and direct involvement from a city council member as well. Although having a member of the council might not be easy to copy, Shahid said that the model can similarly be adjusted to different localities—provided that there is the necessitated local support.
• Sally led a spirited discussion about Arizona and the impact of the evidence of civil liberties disintegrating amidst such racial profiling. She further provided a series of links about current ICE policies that represent how far we are already down the rabbit hole…despite how much further we may have yet to tumble.

Thanks to Shahid, Sally, Mark, Jim, Jon, or joining the call and for Thomas for taking part in the online chat, and please let us know in the comments if you have any questions—or better yet, if you’d like to get started on a local initiative!