The now delayed final vote on the FISA bill is scheduled for AFTER the holiday on July 8th. The bill contains retroactive immunity from prosecution for the telecom giants who illegally allowed access to all YOUR telephone records without a search warrant. It is like a bankrobber who KNOWS his crime is against the law and does it anyway, then goes to Congress and gets them to pass a law saying it WASN'T a crime AFTER the fact. It is so bizarre as to be laughable if it weren't happening in our country at this very moment.
PDLA urges you to
CONTACT SENATOR FEINSTEIN IMMEDIATELY
Dianne's staff says that she "hasn't made up her mind" how she'll vote on this. THAT says it all. This should be a no-brainer for our senior Senator, but she continues to carry the water for the corporations and the defense establishment, reminding us of the Project Censored call out of her conflict of interest and husband's potential profit from her votes by The Byrne Report, published in the Bohemian.
At our meeting last Saturday, Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles voted to send a letter to our senior senator to urge her to filibuster AGAINST this bill as our junior Senator Barbara Boxer has said she will do. The letter has hand delivered to her Los Angeles office this week and included 16 pages of signatures gathered within a few hours. We hope that more people will sign on/print out/fax to her at 202-228-3954, 310-914-7318, 619-231-1108, 559-485-9689, and 415-393-0710 (SF and hardest to get through to), or write your own as did the Chair of our LA County Democratic Party. To CALL, her DC # is 202-224-3841. To e-mail go to feinstein/senate/gov. I don't know if anything will turn her around, but I had heard that the censure from 3 caucuses at the CA convention got her attention (this was for her vote for Mukasey as Atty Gen--you know, the guy who doesn't know that waterboarding is torture).
June 23, 2008
Senator Dianne Feinstein
c/o District Director Trevor Daley
11111 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 915
Los Angeles, CA
Dear Senator Feinstein,
We are writing with great concern regarding reports the Democratic leadership has struck a deal which will further erode civil liberties by circumventing the original FISA laws, and we ask that you not only oppose this new FISA bill but that you filibuster its advancement in the Senate.
We are deeply disappointed in our Party and its leadership for capitulating to the Bush administration with this utterly unnecessary legislation--but you are our Senator, from the great and progressive state of California, and as your constituents we have a right to expect better leadership from you.
We wish to note that in an official statement regarding a previous FISA bill, you defended the telecom industry, stating they had no choice but to break the law--but in this you were incorrect. They did have a choice, proven by the fact that Qwest chose to obey the Constitution rather than wiretap without proper FISA warrants. We would also remind you that the telecoms’ illegal activity began at least seven months before the attacks of 9/11.
We need better answers and better representation from our senior Senator. It was with great pain that, last year, we moved several California Democratic Party caucuses to censure you for your approval of an Attorney General who condoned torture, and for your previous support for telecom immunity. We would prefer not to censure you again, but to instead applaud you for doing what is right and protecting our Constitution rather than protecting corporations and the Bush administration. We ask you to stand with the vast majority of your constituents who side with the rule of law.
Thank you.
Yours,
Michael Jay, Delegate, California Democratic Party, 42nd Assembly District, Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, Co-Chair
Ricco Ross, California Democratic Party, 42nd Assembly District, Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, Co-Chair
Linda Sutton, Delegate CDP, 41st AD, Vice-Chair, PDLA,UTLA House of Reps
Marcy Winograd, Co-Founder, PDLA; CDP Executive Board Rep, 41st AD