Stop the Spying
Last week, House passed a bill that grants telecoms immunity for thewarrantless wiretapping they did in the past - and allows them tocontinue doing so in the future! From the Wired blog:
"The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation,"said Wisconsin Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, the only senator whovoted against the Patriot Act in 2001. "The House and Senate should notbe taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity fortelecom companies alleged to have participated in the President’sillegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abidingAmericans at home."
The bill grants amnesty to the nation's telecoms that are being suedfor allegedly breaking federal wiretapping laws by turning overbillions of Americans' call records to government data-mining programsand giving the government access to internet and phone infrastructureinside the country. The bill strips the right of a federal districtcourt to decide whether the companies violated federal laws prohibitingwiretapping without a court order.
Within the next few days, Senate will vote on this piece oflegislation. If last week's vote in the House is any evidence, thisvote will also be in favor of this gross piece of legislation thattakes away our right to privacy - unless you do something about it.CALL YOUR SENATORS TODAY - the Electronic Frontier Foundation makes iteasy for you to find your senator and make sure your voice is heard.This five-minute phone call could make the difference for our nation -we need to protect our rights to privacy, and ensure that the ExecutiveBranch of our government cannot flagrantly disregard the law.
If all that isn't enough to convince you, BoingBoing just quoted a fascinating piece by Salon's Glenn Greenwald. In part:
It is absolutely false that the only unconstitutional and destructiveprovision of this "compromise" bill is the telecom amnesty part. It'strue that most people working to defeat the Cheney/Rockefeller billviewed opposition to telecom amnesty as the most politically potent wayto defeat the bill, but the bill's expansion of warrantlesseavesdropping powers vested in the President, and its evisceration ofsafeguards against abuses of those powers, is at least as long-lastingand destructive as the telecom amnesty provisions. The bill legalizes many of the warrantless eavesdropping activities George Bush secretly and illegally ordered in 2001.Those warrantless eavesdropping powers violate core Fourth Amendmentprotections. And Barack Obama now supports all of it, and will vote itinto law. Those are just facts.
The ACLU specifically identifiesthe ways in which this bill destroys meaningful limits on thePresident's power to spy on our international calls and emails. Sen.Russ Feingold condemned the bill on the ground that it "fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home"because "the government can still sweep up and keep the internationalcommunications of innocent Americans in the U.S. with no connection tosuspected terrorists, with very few safeguards to protect against abuseof this power." Rep. Rush Holt -- who was actually denied time to speakby bill-supporter Silvestre Reyes only to be given time bybill-opponent John Conyers -- condemned the bill because it vests the power to decide who are the "bad guys" in the very people who do the spying.
It's chilling to think that our presidential candidate supports this bill, especially when Barack Obama vowed to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies." MoveOn.org may support Obama as a candidate, but is appalled by his lack of commitment to this past promise. They encourage you to call Obama's campaign office and let them know how you feel about this frightening bill. So, after you call your senators, take another minute to call Obama and make sure your voice is heard.
(Photo courtesy of Flickr user xirannisx shared under a Creative Commons license.)