It's Valentine's Day! And tonight at 6:30 PM Eastern, the House is once again voting on HR514which extends the PATRIOT Act until December of this year without introducing any reforms. There's an hour of "debate" scheduled at 2 p.m. Eastern. Julian Sanchez' Now what? is a good overview of the issues and The Heritage Foundation on the PATRIOT Act demolishes the arguments for extending it unmodified, and GOP Rep: I made a 'terrible mistake' in last year's PATRIOT Act vote highlight that civil liberties is a multipartisan issue: libertarians, progressives, tea partiers and more and more conservatives and moderates are saying "enough!".
Please urge your representative to no, and ask her to support reintroducing the JUSTICE Act instead. Phone your representative at (202) 224-3121, use POPVOX to say "vote no on 514" and demand JUSTICE, and weigh in using email via via Demand Progress, ACLU, EFF, or Downsize DC.
Get FISA Right will be getting together online during the debate and during the vote. There's also a Day of Action on Facebook and elsewhere. Details on all of this coming soon -- watch the blog!
Despite our best efforts, HR 514 is expected to pass easily. Key questions to watch: how will tea partiers vote? What about the 66 dems who voted for reauth? what about the three potential senate candidates the Hill wrote about? Contact your representative now, use POPVOX to say "vote no on 514" and demand JUSTICE, via Demand Progress, ACLU, EFF, or Downsize DC
After tonight's vote, action shifts to Senate. The odious clauses have to be reauthorized by the end of February or they sunset, and I believe Congress is on recess last week in February. There are 3 bills, none of which match the House. I'll put the details in a comment for those who are interested. Right now though, it's the House. Call your representative now, use POPVOX to say "vote no" and demand JUSTICE, via Demand Progress, ACLU, EFF, or Downsize DC
Help get the word out!
We are finally seeing a lot more media coverage of the PATRIOT Act: Fox, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times, and Al Jazeera but a lot of people still don't know the deetails of what's going on or how they can make a difference. So please help getting the word out. Here's how
- email this info to people
- share it on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter
- leave a comment on any blog posts, articles, Facebook groups, and message board threads discussing the PATRIOT Act and make sure to include the link to the POPVOX page at: http://bit.ly/... and BORDC's Demand JUSTICE campaign at http://bit.ly/...
- and if you're on Twitter, tweet early and often using #patriotact hashtag -- some suggested tweets in the first comment
Get FISA Right will be having a chat during the debate vote on Monday -- watch our blog at http://getfisaright.wordpress.com/ for updates. Please join us! You can follow the PATRIOT Act discussions on Twitter at http://getfisaright.twazzup.com. And please:
jon
