Glenn Greenwald is reporting that House Democrats are actively circulating a new FISA bill that effectively capitulates to the President’s demands. Nancy Pelosi hosted a blogger conference yesterday where she stated that telco immunity would not be provided in any legislation she backed in Congress. But apparently everything else was up for grabs, because exclusivity was the real issue.
Thanks Nancy.
And we thought we’d won, because the House just put off what now seems like inevitable capitulation. Am I the only one here who believes that these representative (and senators) have essentially turned to you and me and said: "Go fuck yourselves"?
The issue of FISA has been followed with a significant level of attention at DailyKos. mcjoan’s commitment to posting frequently and often on the subject is a gift to people who are trying to follow this critical issue in spite of a seemingly endless deluge of petty obsessions on primary campaigns.
Yes the 2008 Election is important. Some things are just as if not more important. We have to occasionally lift ourselves out of this candidate mud bath and realize that we are still being governed by people in our own party who are making horrific choices about our freedom and welfare. Choices that will likely stick for years if not decades after they have been implemented.
Back to FISA:
In addition to invasive telephone call interception, email too is a surveillance target. Privacy experts have all along said the the surveillance program’s scope was an intentional unknown. In fact, Frontline’s program Spying On The Home Front includes an interview with an expert who states very clearly that the current program is vastly more invasive than anyone would even begin to consider.
A lot of us know this. We are that choir and its preacher all at once. We know and care about just how pervasive and colossal the Bush Administration’s domestic surveillance program is. We know that it won’t always be Bush’s surveillance program, but maybe McCain’s or Obama’s or Clinton’s. Beyond activists, however, very people know or care much at all. You know them: the voters and those who change elections because they abstain.
When I first tried to get friends and family to pay attention when the NY Times broke the wiretapping story in 2005, I met a mix of reactions than ranged from "So" to "They’ve been doing this for years" to "Sometimes it’s necessary to give up a little freedom if you don’t want to get blown up." Their reactions have changed very little since. And they really don’t care what Congress is doing regarding the subject.
Sort of depressing, isn’t?
But I’ve persevered on. Like many on this site, I do pay attention and have become increasingly disheartened by the actions of the Democratic Party regarding this issue since the 2006 elections. Disheartened, for me, isn’t even the correct word. It’s hostile.
Time and time again, I’ve watched the Democratic Party’s representatives and senators act in a manner that is not only blatant in its disregard for the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, but also in a seeming violation of the Democratic Party’s longstanding positions on issues of civil liberties.
What’s angered me in particular is the insistence of our representative and senators to not only often disregard calls, faxes, and emails to their offices, but to deceive those who do call into believing that this time they’ve listened. Or that this time they’ll change their mind. Or that this time they’ll lead us by actively fighting for legislation that trumps lobbyists, bribery, fear mongering and upholds our very reason for working so hard on their behalf to rally the voters and rally financial support.
And yet inevitably another "can you spare a dime" email, telephone call, or blog post lands smack on my face like a big slap.
All of this isn’t terribly surprising. It’s how politicians have always operated. But you could have slapped me in the face last century or this one. I’m still hostile.
After witnessing the Democratic Congress for the past year I’m left with the deep seated belief that they are destructive and that they are dangerous to my welfare as well as that of my friends and family. In watching mud pit that the Democratic Primary has become, I see exactly how leaders who operate under stress and with agendas will act as President. And the Supreme Court. Time and time again I’ve read fear-based threats on this site that without a Democrat the SCOTUS is lost for generations. Well it’s really not much won now. And, we cannot guarantee that an incoming Democratic President will seat a progressive justice. It’s just a probability based on hope.
I have no hope in our party bureaucracy, leadership or representatives.
I want the part to become something else. Markos’ crashing the gates frame has been a powerful metaphor for me in my activism. But I don’t think the gates are being crashed. I don’t see a new party emerging. I see new mechanisms for energizing grass roots activism. It’s stunning in its implications. But the process is not revolutionary enough and not moving with the swiftness necessary to head off drastic changes to fundamental American values.
Back to FISA:
What are we supposed to do now? More faxes, phone calls, emails? It’s not working. What’s next. There has to be a new next. Does it go to a higher level of disobedience? Or would that just turn the public against our cause – especially given the media’s proclivity to assign the cloak of rabble rouser to anyone who gives a damn about anything.
Can we opt out of domestic surveillance? Not use our phones, computers, credit cards, etc? Maybe even for a day or for a week as a form of protest? A general communications strike?
Can we collectively all use keywords and loaded phrases in our mail, chats, and calls – ghost mail, chats, and calls simultaneously for a week in protest?
Can we start an extra party marketing campaign that identifies Democrats who don’t vote Democratic and mocks them or makes a fool of them without supporting their likely more radical Republican opponent?
What can we do next? What other essential freedom are we going to give up this year? Or in the next four years? We haven’t won’t for sure this election cycle. What if we don’t?
These aren’t empty questions. They are an impassioned search for new tactics in the face of a broken system. Do you share that passion? Do you have any ideas? Do you have any suggestions for a better forum to make ideas actually happen? Comments often seem to just be cheerleaders or hecklers sitting in their arm chairs.
I’m looking to network here. Linking ideas and doing something with them.