Will the FISA bill be your legacy, Senator Feinstein? When you and other cowardly Democrats, too milk-fed on easy Telecom money, shivering with fear over possibly being blamed by your GOP rivals for another 9/11, and too comfortable to take a principled stand that could rock the Bush Administration boat, sold out the Constitution for your 30 pieces of sliver?
Dear Senator Feinstein,
I have been one of your strongest supporters since you were Mayor of San Francisco. Now, I am severely disappointed in you, to the point of disgust. Sadly, your vote for the recent FISA bill - which grants complete civil immunity to Telecom companies for past spying on innocent American citizens - is also a vote for continued illegal surveillance and immunity going forward.
In short, you have voted to gut one of the most important ammendments in the Constitution, the Fourth Ammendment right for American citizens "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures." Today, the majority of Americans communicate by electronic methods, by email and by text. Are these not my "papers?" If so, what gives the government and the Telecom companies the right to copy, redirect, evaluate, read, share, and discuss my "papers" without regard to warrant, probable cause, or suspicion of wrongdoing, under the Constitution?
What gives the government this blanket, invasive, and Consitutuionally illegal right is YOU, Senator Feinstein. YOU. You, by your capitulation and spineless pandering to pervasive lobbyists, and by your fear of being labeled "soft on national security" by your GOP colleagues.
Ironically, you recently announced that you would not seek reelection to your seat in the Senate. How then can you explain your vote on FISA to the people of California? Now, when you are completely free to take a principled stand in defense of the Constitution, how can you continue to cave in?
With your complicit participation and your vote, you are actively helping to turn America into a society that more closely resembles the German Democratic Republic (e.g., Communist East Germany) than the America we know and love, as defined by the Bill of Rights.
During the Cold War, in the name of national security and fear of "internal enemies," the East German government turned every citizen into a object to be spied upon at its whim, based upon its own justifications, without explanation, in secret, and without redress. During the Cold War, America fought to pull down the East German Communist system, a system roundly condemned as corrupt for allowing such systematic and widespread abuses. And yet today, in America in 2008, the exact same justifications used by the East Germans - national security and fear of internal enemies - are being used to give the American government the exact same powers of systematic and widespread abuse.
This is deplorable, Senator. Were you to run, I would never vote for you again.
When the protections granted to the people by the Constitution are gone, then the America we have known for 221 years is also gone.
Will this be your legacy, Senator Feinstein, that you and other cowardly Democrats, too milk-fed on easy Telecom money, shivering with fear over possibly being blamed for another 9/11, and too comfortable to take a principled stand that could rock the Bush Administration boat, sold out the Constitution for your 30 pieces of sliver?
Alito, Mukasey, FISA..... what does it take to get you to do your job for us, your constituents in California, for us, the American citizens?
Drip by drip, American Democracy is eroded by the actions of those in power we count on to take a stand for us and for our Constitution. But, all you stand for is going along to get along.
With people like you on the scene in 1775, there never would have been a Lexington or a Concord. Instead, you and your fellow Senatorial "patriots" would be dining with Lord Howe and throwing apologies to King George, in order not to be accused of being "difficult."
Your presence as my Senator shames me. You should be ashamed as well.
Signed, A Democrat
San Francisco, CA