Get FISA Right! Priorities to Stop The FISA Bill
Mon Jul 07, 2008 at 09:26:25 AM PDT
Less than 48hours to go - time to take action
The largest group on my.barackobama.com "Get FISA Right" has put together a number of resources for fighting the upcoming FISA bill. The FISA bill is scheduled to come up for consideration in the Senate this Tuesday. Dodd and Feingold are leading the charge against this horrible bill. The Get FISA Right group has an excellent activists' priorities page for what you should do to fight this bill.
Also if you have not read it yet, you should check out the letter the group sent to Obama.The unprecedented exchange between a presidential candidate and his supports continues. The largest group on the my.barackobama.com site has issued another open letter to Barack Obama. On Thursday Obama defended his intent to vote for the FISA bill - immunity or no immunity. The group says he should vigorously fight both the immunity provision and the whole bill on the floor of the Senate...
We ask that you back up your words with action by addressing your constituents on the floor of the Senate with the same oratorical power you used in Philadelphia to lay out your vision of a 'More Perfect Union.' The American people have just as much right to know of the dangerous precedent this Congress would be setting by granting retroactive immunity to those who "may have violated the law" and allowing spying on law-abiding citizens as we did to relearn of segregation and Jim Crow. The arm of government oppression reaches far and wide, Senator, and we must beat it back on whatever front we find it.
We ask you to reconsider your current position on the bill as a whole ...In your statement you also wrote, "In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited." We agree. Our nation just spent the holiday weekend in celebration of our independence from unlimited government authority. America in 1776 wished to be strong and free. Much has changed in 232 years but Americans will never consciously abandon freedom.
Senator, while you wrote that not passing this bill would result in the government "losing important surveillance tools," these important surveillance tools are in fact blanket surveillance programs already underway solely due to the passage of the Protect America Act, which you rightly opposed and voted against.
Ari Melber at the Nation also has more reading about this new relationship between supporters and a candidate. It is worth reading.
JOIN THE "GET FISA RIGHT" GROUP ON my.barackobama.com - climbing membership in the group is what is keeping the FISA story in the press. Join today!
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