Get FISA Right

By: Harry Waisbren

I discussed the latest fantastic news about Feingold’s surge in the polls in my update and retrospective post, but I dare say it’s worth expanding upon as we up the ante in our fundraising campaign for him to $3,000.

First, here’s Wisconsinite John Nichols analysis of the polls:

Now, however, one of the oldest and most respected polls of Wisconsin voters, the St. Norbert College Survey Center poll, sponsored by Wisconsin Public Radio, has the race narrowing to a toss up.

According to the St. Norbert Survey, it’s Johnson 49 percent to Feingold 47 percent. That’s well within the margin of error for this—and other—surveys, meaning the race can reasonably be described as a toss-up.

Nichols further elaborates on how Feingold has typically polled better than the average democrat, and right now is “running dramatically ahead of his party.” This shouldn’t be too surprising, as Feingold’s independence is one of his hallmark values, and his adherence to principle ahead of party is why I am so proud personally to call myself a Feingold Democrat.

If you needed any more evidence for why it’s so integral to keep someone like this in office, look no further than this video of Senator Feingold explaining FISA in 30 seconds:

If you care about FISA and civil liberties at large, you should care immensely about losing our issue’s greatest advocate. The contrast between his opponent couldn’t be starker either, with Jane Hamsher going so far as to compare Ron Johnson to Joe Lieberman.

We couldn’t appreciate the donations of your hard earned money more, because we know that Senator Feingold couldn’t appreciate it more either! On the flipside, you can also certainly donate your time to Feingold as well—the Progressive Congressional Change Committee has a very slick tool that lets you phone bank for your choice of candidates from a slate of progressives, including Feingold. If you have a few minutes of time and care to talk to some Wisconsinites, please do so—we really are a friendly folk!

It’s difficult to imagine what will happen if he does lose, and it’s a prospect that I personally find very frightening. If you can donate, even a small amount of money or a morsel of your time, please do so. There isn’t any other politician in our country who has earned it more in my book.

By: Harry Waisbren

We’ve had some big headway on our latest initiatives lately. Our support for Senator Feingold’s reelection has blown past our latest goal of $2,500, and groups just like us stepping up have certainly helped him as he has closed the gap to make the race a dead heat. We also have now concluded what has turned into a unanimous vote to sign the IAC Letter, which I have taken the pleasure to officially sign us up for–and simultaneously reach out to help more as an organization.

Considering we are at transitionary points with these two initiatives, I thought now might be a good time for a look back to remind everyone about some of our history. Our crowdsource model can really make it difficult to keep track of everything going on at once amongst our group, especially considering that we are likewise talking with so many other groups. Anyways, here goes…

First things first, the Get FISA Right concept began June 26, 2008 with a post from Mardi. He created a new group on the Obama social network, My.BarackObama.com, asking then Senator Obama, Please Get FISA Right.

Mike Stark kicked off what would become a robust blogosphere discussion about civic engagement and if Obama will feel the sting of social networking through his stance on FISA. The members rallied behind signing an open letter to Obama, and as the number of group members skyrocketed to 22,000, in unprecedented fashion, he was compelled to respond.

The mainstream media picked up this story in a big way, and beltway insiders and tech luminaries alike recognized this social networking based engagement as a new style of democratic discourse. Despite not successfully convincing Obama to get FISA right, we did force the issue into the national discourse, and simultaneously provided a model exhibiting the power of social media-based political activism.

Initial leaders spreading the word & coordinating discussion included Dawn Teo, Ari Melber, Aviva Dancis, Chip Pitts, John Joseph Bachir, Carlo Scanella, Andy Famiglietti, Jon Pincus, and more. Despite Obama passing on getting FISA right, that strong base of support helped keep our momentum going to bring attention to FISA and civil liberties in other new and innovative ways.

From that base, the tactics we used developed quickly, and soon we were utilizing a crowdsource model to conceive and fund 30 second TV ads through SaysMe.TV, taking part in the Change.org/MySpace Ideas for Change, and making sure that our language was adopted as part of the Netroots Platform.

Our transition to the post-election environment was catalyzed even more during the 2009 Computers Freedom and Privacy conferences’ birds of a feather session: New Strategies to Fighting FISA & the Patriot Act. Afterwards, we began holding regular conference calls and online chats, in addition to calls specifically for bloggers, to coordinate online activism stemming from our Patriot Act Action Hub.

The conference calls and online chat model facilitated writing transcript style notes, and ‘key takeaways’ were further recorded from every meeting on this very blog. Such tactics have provided us with a meticulous documentation of the development of our strategy, and is a very useful resource for anyone looking to catch up to what we have been up to or that wants to go on a trip down memory lane.

The individuals and organizations taking part in these calls have changed with the legislative timeline and individuals’ personal capacity. Organizations participating include the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, FireDogLake.com, the Association for Research Libraries, etc. New Get FISA Right leaders emerged as well, including Mark Dorlester, Korkie Moore-Bruno, Thomas Nephew, Sally Jane, Jim Burrows, Amy Ringenbach, Talat Gilani Hamdani, and many more.

Hey everyone, here’s your final opportunity to weigh over whether or not we 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.

To vote ay or nay, just write a comment to this blog post. This way, you will also be able to explain your reasoning if you care to.

Update: and it’s unanimous! 16 ay’s to 0 no’s. We sign the letter.

I just got an email from the Feingold campaign:

Johnson’s support is slipping rapidly. His once commanding lead has dropped down to a statistical tie with Russ. Despite the millions in slash-and-burn ads special interests are dumping into Wisconsin media markets, Wisconsin voters aren’t having any of it. In fact, Johnson’s Washington, D.C. corporate special interest strategy has backfired – Johnson’s negatives are way up – more than 10 points in just the past week alone.

Johnson’s desperation means only one thing – a massive wave of attack ads targeting Russ. Even as I write this to you, I fully expect that Johnson and his corporate special interest cronies are plotting out their final wave of attacks. […]

Russ’s campaign is capitalizing on this shift in public opinion. We’re working with supporters like you to expand our grassroots operation throughout Wisconsin. Television and radio ads only go so far in an election; it’s our grassroots ground game that’s going to get the win for Russ on November 2.

Let’s dig deep and pitch in some more.  I know there are a lot of other pleas for money going around out there — but this is our guy, we need to stand by him.  Thanks to all who’ve given so far — now can you give a little more?  And if you haven’t, please give now — it doesn’t have to be $100, $5 and $10 is fine too.

Above all, start spreading this URL — http://actblue.com/page/gfr4russ — to the people on your email lists, to your Facebook friends, to your Twitter followers.  Let them know Russ is in a tight race, but it’s one he can win — with their help. And with yours.  Thanks!

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?