Dear Senator Obama,
I am and have been an ardent supporter of yours since late December. I have had the distinct pleasure of voting for your three times now; as my party's nominee for Senate and then again to make you my Senator - and yet again this past February.
I was deeply moved by your speech on Tuesday and impressed by your courage in trusting America -- that we CAN see shades of gray, that we don't need to have our opinions spoonfed to us, that we will see and hear nuance if only someone would be brave enough to give it to us.
For months now, many of us -- both Clinton supporters, Obama supporters - and yes, Dodd supporters and Edwards supporters -- have toiled in near isolation, trying to remind our Senate majority that we cannot be so quick to hand over our civil liberties to this administration and at the same time, get-out-jail free cards to their enablers. For some of us, it's actually been years -- back when only Senator Russ Feingold would stand up, a lone voice in the wilderness, to the civil liberties give-aways of the PATRIOT act (Edit: geez... FISA on the brain!).
Senator Obama, when someone asks me what my most important issue is, I always tell them that it is the protection of my civil liberties. Everything I am as a Democrat, as an American, depends on them. From economic safety to safety from foreign and domestic enemies -- my most powerful shield as an American has always been those God given protections that our forefathers saw fit to enshrine.
Sadly, too few of your colleagues have seen the same dangers that we have. Too few of our fellow Americans, too. And most glaringly, too few, of the press who have either the "time nor inclination" to properly understand the matters at hand.... just ask Joe Klein.
We have now learned that your own privacy was breached. On Three occasions. Over the course of two months.
We do not yet know the reasons why -- but in reality, they don't matter. The danger to me is NOT necessarily that my private information - my private conversations, anything I hold private or dear will end up in the hands of a political enemy; I'm just some guy on a blog. The danger to me is that such government collected data could end up in the hands of precisely the most benign reason your privacy was breached. Idle data mining. Lazy lunchtime peaks. Identity thieves smart enough to insert operatives into temp agencies.... except, I won't have cable television and the media to get to the bottom of it.
When people have asked me why, with my biggest issue stated as the protection of civil liberties, I support you -- I tell them it is because you lectured for 10 years on constitutional law. Cass Sunstein has said that you could well be our most constitutionally versed President. And yes - you have voted as I would hope. You did support Senator Dodd's attempt to derail Harry Reid's march of fear into the hands of the White House.
I said after your speech that it reminded me of the words of a fellow Chicagoan of ours, one who, too, has been fighting a lonely fight in defense of our Civil Liberties. Studs Terkel:
"I've always felt, in all my books, that there's a deep decency in the American people and a native intelligence—providing they have the facts, providing they have the information."
I believe that. I think your speech Tuesday proved you believe it, too.
I'm asking you not to make this a part of your stump speech. I'm asking you not to express your outrage about the administration's actions. I'm asking your to express your outrage to your Senate Majority Leader. To any wavering Democrats that feel FISA is a losing issue. To the American people at their complacency.
It shouldn't be a campaign tactic. Don't invite Hillary to join you in public - ask her privately. Stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold, Senator Clinton and other like-minded Democrats and demand that we have a debate on FISA, on the PATRIOT Act, on every civil liberty robbing legislation the administration has and wants to ram through Congress and demand that it be given the serious discussion, careful consideration, and light of day it deserves.
The worst part of the breach of your privacy isn't that it could have been done for political purposes -- the worst part is that it might not have been - and that means it could happen to any American.
Explain to the American people that THIS, THIS is why we do not so cavalierly give up our lives to the American government.