Get FISA Right

By: Harry Waisbren

Leslie Harris, President and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, posts about Obama versus Obama on the Patriot Act:

Disturbingly, Obama Administration officials played a significant behind the scene role in opposing stronger civil liberties protections, directly contradicting Obama’s positions as a Senator.

Marcy Wheeler has also been covering Obama’s role in the watering down of the Patriot Act, and it is something we at Get FISA Right should be taking very seriously.

Previously, I posted about Attorney General Holder’s discussion of the “conversation to be had” about modifications for civil liberties concerns. Our open letter to Obama last summer turned precisely into this sort of conversation through his follow up post directed to us, and his continuing support for such unsupportable actions has me contemplating whether we should go down this route again—-if only to make sure he knows we are paying attention.

Commenter Sally G agreed with this notion and wrote:

Yes, I definitely think that we should follow up on the earlier discussion. The president (then candidate) explained his position quite clearly in the follow-up blog post, we expressed our support at the inauguration with the TV ads, and now that the tone seems to have changed, I think we have the right and responsibility that he gave us in that post. To paraphrase, he said that although we might respectively, grassroots activism was part of the reason for his success, and that he expected to be held accountable. So let’s draft a letter pointing out how administration actions today are in many ways the continuation of Bush’s policies that now-Pres. Obama himself warned us we could expect from John McCain. It is time that we asked him to deliver on the promises he made—especially after the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, which sets a high standard for his current and future actions.

I agree with her particularly about the Nobel Peace Prize providing an even greater impetus for beginning this conversation. Please provide your thoughts as well!

By: Harry Waisbren

Emptywheel, aka Marcy Wheeler, of Firedoglake once again is covering the effort to fix the watering down of the Patriot Act in a comprehensive fashion.

First off, her post on Obama’s bipartisanship: hiding up Jeff Sessions’ skirts when eliminating privacy protections:

The whole thing is disgusting: Obama sneaking these in in a last-minute classified briefing. Doing so under cover from Jeff Sessions (what? DiFi and Pat Leahy don’t want responsibility for this??). Pat Leahy letting that happen. A voice vote, so no one will ever hold Leahy and DiFi and Whitehouse and Franken and others responsible for doing this.

She follows up on this assessing a different “Sessions amendment” from Obama as well.

Wheeler posted further on how the Obama DOJ Declines to Support Legality of Bush Surveilance Program:

In short, once again the Obama Administration is, in yet another forum, adopting lock, stock and silencer fitted barrel the policy, tactics and arguments of the Bush/Cheney Administration to shield wholesale illegal and unconstitutional conduct by way of executive classification and secrecy.

…and here she is expanding upon Wired’s story from Ryan Singel headlined Telephone Company is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit in a post she titled The Blog that Passed Telecom Immunity.

Her latest post on the subject so far assesses White Supremacists with Hydrogen Peroxide and this disturbing reality:

Now, interestingly, these guys might not even qualify for the new language (or even the old language) in Section 215 allowing the FBI to now check all the hardware and beauty supply stores in Lake Elsinore for others who have been purchasing TATP precursors–unless the Nazi propaganda qualifies as “international terrorism.”

That’s the latest for now, but presumably she’ll have much more for us soon!

By: Harry Waisbren

Marcy Wheeler has come out with a variety of posts today on the Patriot Act over at her Emptywheel blog hosted on Firedoglake.

First off, her liveblog of the hearing exemplifies her trailblazing in the medium. I doubt there is a better or more comprehensive report available. She followed that with a post confirming her initial hypothesis that our government is tracking hydrogen peroxide and acetone purchases mostly by “searching some subset of the country for their beauty, home improvement, and cleaning supplies.”

Next, she blogs about this Feingold video–which I posted about earlier here–highlighting the 17 second mark where Sen. Leahy presumably sighs, “Oh boy” in response. She followed this with another post about the contrast between Sen. Franken questioning David Kris about the 4th amendment to….voting to implement exactly what he was critiquing Kris for supporting:

Of course, two weeks later, Franken voted with eight other Democrats to continue to allow the government to collect information–things like shopping histories–about people without first identifying whose information they want to collect

Lastly (at least so far today), she posts about Bush’s Illegal Surveillance Program and Section 215:

In other words, it appears they may have started using Section 215s for something they had been using the illegal program for. And it appears that the March 2006 PATRIOT reauthorization, which was partly an add-on to the 2005 reauthorization in 2005 designed to overcome the filibuster that had started in response to the revelation of the program in December 2005, found ways to put some of the things they were doing into other parts of PATRIOT. Combo orders, for example, became regular parts of trap and trace devices.

All of which is a very vague way to say we probably ought to be thinking of four programs–Bush’s illegal domestic surveillance program and the PAA/FAA program that replaced it, NSLs, Section 215 orders, and trap and trace devices–as one whole. As the authorities of one program got shut down by exposure or court rulings or internal dissent, it would migrate to another program. That might explain, for example, why Senators who opposed fishing expeditions in 2005 would come to embrace broadened use of Section 215 orders in 2009.

She ends by citing an upcoming post that delves more deeply into this. In particular, I’m looking forward to hearing more about the concept of looking at these programs “as one whole.” Such an approach would de-wonkify our campaigns—making it easier to discuss civil liberties in universally understood, moral terms.

By: Harry Waisbren

After today’s disappointing Patriot Act reauthorization vote, Sen. Feingold took to the Daily Kos to explain his perspective. He decried the nature of the committee’s debate, particularly the lockstep manner in which they followed the requests of the executive branch. In fact, he out and out questioned whether his fellow committee members understand their assignments:

It’s not the Prosecutors’ Committee; it’s the Judiciary Committee. And whether the executive branch powers are overbroad is something we have to decide.  The only people we should be deferring to are the American people, as we try to protect them from terrorism without infringing on their freedoms.

The above excerpt links to the following YouTube video from the hearing, exemplifying Feingold’s exasperation at a pinnacle point where he made called his colleagues’ knowledge of the role of Judiciary Committee into question:

Despite his frustration, he asserted that this fight is not over sending the Democratic party a major gut check:

I appreciate Chairman Leahy’s efforts to achieve a compromise.  And I hope to work with him and other members of this committee to make further improvements as this bill goes forward.  In the end, however, Democrats have to decide if they are going to stand up for the rights of the American people or allow the FBI to write our laws.  For me, that’s not a difficult choice.

Also of note in this post was an update that Feingold provided in which he offers a window into how his office handles new media campaigns:

I posted this in the comments, as well, but as always, thanks for reading and thanks for your comments on fixing the PATRIOT Act and other issues.  As some of you know, what I typically do is have my staff print out the comments so I can be sure to read them all.  So please post your questions, concerns and suggestions.  We have a tough fight ahead of us on this and I appreciate the feedback this community offers.

It’s great news that he takes new media communities so seriously, and we should make sure to keep this in mind as we contemplate further how we can help this civil liberties champion!

By: Harry Waisbren

The Patriot Act Reauthorization has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, 11-8, and is now moving on to the full Senate. There were certainly many disappointing aspects of the hearing, leading Julian Sanchez of the CATO institute at one point to describe–hopefully in jest–that his soul was slowly dying and Marcy Wheeler to decry the “BullSHIT!!!”

There were, however, some positive developments, including a passed amendment from Sen. Feingold requiring DOJ to discard illegally collected information from National Security Letters. Sen. Specter also voted the right way each and every time, and seems to be becoming an increasingly integral civil liberties advocate—something that is important regardless of how you feel about his upcoming primary with congressman Joe Sestak.

We’ll have much more to say about all of this soon of course. For now, check out our post-hearing Tweeting points, we’ll continue to relay any new developments, and a rounding thank you to everyone who joined in at our Patriot Act Action Hub!

UPDATED after the hearing

As always, retweeting appreciated!

Heartfelt thanks to @RussFeingold, @SenDurbin & @SenArlenSpecter civil liberties heroes at this morning’s #patriotact vote (via @eff)

RT @Hegemommy: Is Uncle Sam snooping in your medical records? How can you be sure? http://bit.ly/le78B #patriotactRT @rmack: Is America getting more like China? http://tinyurl.com/y8tjxk3 #patriotact

RT @aclu: Feingold amendment Passes: Requires Justice Dept. to discard illegally collected info from National Security Letters. #patriotact

RT @twi_news: @SenArlenSpecter Emerges as Key Civil Liberties Advocate in #patriotact Markup http://bit.ly/Qbdh9

Thanks!

jon

We’ve got a chat room set up at http://bit.ly/oct8hearing where we’ll be following the hearing and the live-blogging — and possibly engaging in some last-minute activism. Please join us!

And speaking of last-minute activism, please consider posting this link and changing your Facbook status message to

I’m not a terrorist–stop spying on Americans! Fix the Patriot act. http://bit.ly/howtohelp

And if you’re on Twitter, help get the word out about the chat by tweeting

RT @GetFISARight Please join us online during Thursday’s #patriotact hearing!  http://bit.ly/oct8hearing

jon

By: Harry Waisbren

Below you will find an update on the various campaigns we are running in anticipation of tomorrow’s Patriot Act business:

[Note that from now on we will be relaying these campaigns through our Patriot Act Action Hub]

Patriot Act Action Hub

This page has the latest news and action items stored and culled into a chatroom—automatically aggregating #PatriotAct tweets as well.

We will be covering and activating others before, during, and after tomorrow’s events through this hub, so please join us!

ACLU Call to Action

We have phone numbers to all these senators on our landing page:

These are the Democratic committee members who, in concert with all of their Republican colleagues, voted against adding  modest privacy protections that would have reined in the infamous “library records provision” and  need to hear from you: Senators Leahy (D-VT), Kohl (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Schumer (D-NY), Kaufman (D-DE, Klobuchar (D-MN), Franken (D-MN) and Whitehouse (D-RI).

Facebook campaigning

On Facebook? Change your status to this:

I’m not a terrorist–stop spying on Americans! Fix the patriot act.

Tweeting Points

@RussFeingold and @SenDurbin, thanks for your tireless efforts to reform the #patriotact http://act.ly/kn (please RT)

I’m not a terrorist–stop spying on Americans! Fix the #patriotact. http://act.ly/Rf Pls RT

Check here for a quick summary on the legislative situation, or head here for a much more detailed analysis!

By: Harry Waisbren

Julian Sanchez of the CATO Institute explains the particulars of how Fox continues to get their Patriot Act coverage wrong in the video below:

I find myself in complete agreement with Glenn Greenwald’s assessment of it:

Cato’s Julian Sanchez examines — and absolutely destroys — the fear-mongering claims from Fox News about efforts to reform the Patriot Act and FISA, with a particular focus on Fox’s efforts to use the Zazi plot to justify the need for these powers.

Yeah, “absolutely destroys” sounds about right. You’d think the people petrified that Obama is a new Hitler would worry about his capacity to tap all of our communications…

Anyways, I also empathize with this lament from Sanchez:

I would love to be able to have the serious argument about whether and why safeguards or oversight should be structured a certain way, but PATRIOT boosters need to stop making the same tedious set of basic factual errors first…

If only!

By: Harry Waisbren

The ACLU blogs about the USA PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act markup and vote this Thursdsay. Within the post they linked to two of our act.ly petitions on Twitter:

you can thank Senator Feingold for introducing the amendment by tweeting a message here and Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA)for voting for it by tweeting a message here.

They also repeat their call to congress to reform the Patriot Act, while specifying the following call to action:

These are the Democratic committee members who, in concert with all of their Republican colleagues, voted against adding  modest privacy protections that would have reined in the infamous “library records provision” and  need to hear from you: Senators Leahy (D-VT), Kohl (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Schumer (D-NY), Kaufman (D-DE, Klobuchar (D-MN), Franken (D-MN) and Whitehouse (D-RI). These Senators need a reminder that Americans are actually pretty interested in keeping our Fourth Amendment rights.

And make sure to call Senators Specter and Cardin to thank them for supporting Feingold’s important amendment last Thursday and urge them to keep supporting the Constitution.  Call these Senators on the Judiciary Committee and tell them to protect your privacy this Thursday and vote for JUSTICE Act amendments that will truly reform the Patriot Act.

Perhaps we can help out reminding these senators about their oath of office via social media? I already wrote up a listing of all the social network accounts for the SJC Democrats, and it’d be great if we could use it to complement a campaign like this.

Either way, if you have a few minutes, take the ACLU’s advice and hit the phones!