We’re working on a talking points page on the wiki … thanks to Chip Pitts for kicking things off. More here.
jon
Talking points in progress
September 18, 2009
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How big are we?
September 18, 2009How big is Get FISA Right? Hard to say …
- President Obama, please get FISA Right Organizing for America (formerly MyBO) has 23,198 members. Of these, about 2570 subscribe to the mailing list; we don’t have a good way of getting in touch with the others
- Change.org idea: has 12796 supporters; we don’t have a good way of getting in touch with them.
- Facebook group: 2023 members.
- Wetpaint wiki : 165 members.
- Twitter account: 148 followers.
- Google group: 139 members.
- MySpace page: 78 friends (but nobody knows the password)
- Facebook page: 61 fans
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The battle lines are drawn. What will Get FISA Right do?
September 17, 2009
Shortly after the Obama Administration announced its general support for renewing three sections of the USA PATRIOT Act, U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and six others today introduced the Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act.
It’s aimed to “reform the USA PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendments Act and other surveillance authorities to protect Americans’ constitutional rights, while preserving the powers of our government to fight terrorism,” according to Feingold’s office.
— Norman Oder, Library Journal
Julian Sanchez at Cato@Liberty and Kevin Bankston at EFF have more.
I’ve already been contacted by a reporter asking what Get FISA Right will do.
Suggestions?
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Posted by jdp23
“New strategies for fighting FISA and the PATRIOT Act”
July 4, 2009The notes from the “birds-of-a-feather” session I led at Computers, Freedom, and Privacy are written up on the CFP Wiki. Alas, we didn’t get the online aspects to work; still, we had a dozen people there in person, including Get FISA Right members Thomas Nephew and Chip Pitts. It was a great discussion. The opportunities we identified include
- building a broad, diverse coalition
- focusing on cost, dignity, and human rights issues as well as privacy and the constitution
- using anti-corporate activism against the companies supplying equipment and profiting from surveillance
- involving the technical community and domain experts
and a lot more. We also discussed some of the tactical issues about the upcoming PATRIOT Act vote: the need for an accurate vote count; a pressure campaign on key Congresspeople like Jane Harman, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and Harry Reid; and the importance of powerful visual images.
jon
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FISA at Computers, Freedom, and Privacy 2009
May 30, 2009
FISA’s been a major topic since the 90s at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, and this year’s no exception. For the first time ever, we’ll be streaming video, and so the great content will be available whether or not you’re making the trek to Washington DC … and the Twitter backchannel will give a way to participate in the discussion as well.
Here’s a brief summary of some of the sessions that are likely to be of interest to Get FISA Right members — and anybody else interested in domestic surveillance, warrantless wiretapping, and a panoptic society. All will be streamed at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/cfp09, and videos will also be available for later viewing.
Read the rest of this entry »
Ask the President results (belatedly) … and a question for Harry Reid
April 1, 2009Thanks everybody who voted for and tweeted about our Ask the President question:
Before you were elected, you committed to having your attorney general review domestic surveillance policy. What are your plans and timeframe to get FISA right?
We wound up with 268 yes votes, 16 no for +252 net and an astonishing 94% approval rating. Depending on how you look at it, we finished #7 (in terms of net votes) or #1 (in terms of approval rating). Bob Fertik’s special prosecutor question was at 1020 yes, 371 no, 73% approval, and finished #3 in net votes at +640. Congratulations all!
Of course Ask the President was just a vehicle. Our goals were getting more coverage of FISA and domestic wiretapping issues, and resuming our dialog with President Obama.
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Posted by jdp23
Get FISA Right in “Ask the President” — bloggers wanted!
March 23, 2009Ari Melber’s The People’s Press Conference in The Nation introduces Ask the President, a project where people can suggest and vote on questions that will potentially be asked at a White House press conference. Other sponsors include The Nation, The Washington Times, Personal Democracy Forum, Change.org, Democrats.com (Bob Fertik, whose question continues to lead), and Jack and Jill Politics.
President Obama’s next press conference is at Tuesday, 8 PM Eastern (Facebook event here).
Wouldn’t it be great if somebody asked about FISA and the Patriot Act?
Please vote for our question
Before you were elected, you committed to having your attorney general review domestic surveillance policy. What are your plans and timeframe to get FISA right?
at http://p2pt0.wetpaint.com/page/Ask+the+President/
Also, Bob Fertik of Democrats.com has a question as well, asking President Obama to appoint a special prosecutor. During the Ideas for Change competition, we overwhelmingly voted to endorse Bob’s special prosecutor proposal, so please consider voting for his question as well.
Bob’s currently in #2 overall at a net of +254 votes. We’re currently at a net of +31. Our approval rating is over 90%. Very cool!
The wiki page has various suggestions for promotion via email, Twitter, etc. One thing we could really use is for people to blog about this and include the handy embed widget like Bob has. If you do, please leave a link in a comment here so that everybody can see it.
The best way to follow updates is here, via the @GetFISARight Twitter account. If anybody wants to provide updates on the blog here, please let us know in a comment.
Thanks!
jon
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Posted by jdp23
What to ask President Obama?
March 17, 2009
Ask the President is launching this Thursday. Details aren’t public yet, but from the Twitter discussions so far, it seems like the basic idea is to provide a followon to Change.gov’s short-lived Open for Questions series [1, 2]: a way for people to submit potential questions and vote on what they think the best ones are.
Hmm.
This is the kind of stuff that Get FISA Right has done well in the past, for example finishing #5 in change.org‘s Ideas for Change in America. As well as resuming our dialog with President Obama, if we can get somebody to ask a FISA-related question at a White House press conference it’ll also be a great chance for publicity. FISA and the PATRIOT Act are starting to be in the news a little, and this is a different angle for reporters to cover; we got so much attention last summer that plenty of media folks know who we are. The story practically writes itself: “Following on their previous success on MyBO, the social network-savvy activists at Get FISA RIght have done it again …”
So even though we don’t know a lot about the format yet, let’s start thinking now about what kind of question we’d like to ask. Maybe something like:
What are President Obama’s plans to get FISA right?
In then-Senator Obama’s note on FISA last summer, he stated his opposition to telecom immunity, and talked of his intent to have the new attorney general review all domestic surveillance programs and “to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.” Since you taking office, though, the Obama DOJ has followed the Bush Administration line on immunity and in the in the Al-Haramain case. When and how does President Obama intend to follow up on his campaign promises on FISA?
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House conservatives introduce bill to extend PATRIOT Act
March 13, 2009Jared Allen reports in The Hill:
More than a dozen of the GOP’s most conservative members on Thursday introduced a bill to reauthorize controversial Patriot Act provisions set to expire later this year.
The group of House Republicans – who include Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Judiciary Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) – want to extend for an additional 10 years the ability of national security agencies to conduct “roving” wiretaps, have access to library patron information and greatly expand the reach of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Those provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire this year.
Earlier in the year than we had expected …
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Feingold to give the Obama administration “a few more weeks” to introduce FISA reform legislation
March 5, 2009In a comment on What does it mean to “get FISA right”?, Ben Masel wrote:
I caught up with Senator Feingold last Sunday, at his Birthday Party/Re-election fundraiser.
He’s going to give the Administration “a few more weeks” to come up with a bill to roll back the FISA amendments, introduce his own bill if they don’t.
One more reason why Get FISA Right ♡ Senator Feingold!
So now’s a very good time to think about activism related to whatever legislation gets introduced: a “50-state strategy” of feedback to all the Senators and Representatives from their consituents — including in-person meetings and cable TV advertising — as well as pressure on President Obama and his administration. Continuing the discussions on What does it mean to “get FISA right”? is a key part of it; it’s a chance for us to take the initiative. So please check out that thread and contribute your opinions.
More details as we get them. Other thoughts on how we should proceed?
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Posted by jdp23
Get FISA Right 