In the last couple of weeks very important things have been going
on in the realm of Civil Liberties, and our concern for issues like
Health Care, Iran, Afghanistan and the Chicago bid for the Olympics
have distracted us from it. And it is not going well. You can help.
Help put pressure on the US Senate and House of Representatives to put
important protections of the rights of "US persons", our citizens and
resident aliens into the law as it is renewed.
If
you listen to Fox News, "Some on the Left" or "Some Democrats" want to
strip the federal government of critical powers to protect us from
terrorists. Unfortunately, as they are making these claims in defense
of the USA PATRIOT Act, they get most of the facts wrong. Julian
Sanchez of the CATO Institute has a video and blog posting that tears
their coverage apart.
So what is really going on? If the
Democrats aren't trying to completely eliminate valuable anti-terrorist
tools, what has been happening the last two weeks?
First of all,
several sections of the USA PATRIOT Act are up for re-authorization,
because they were passed with a "sunset clause" that makes them expire
at the end of the year. According to even official Inspector General
reports from both administrations, the Patriot act has lead to
substantial abuse of US Citizens constittution rights. In response to
these abuses Senators Feingold and Durbin introduced an act called the
"JUSTICE Act". "JUSTICE, like "USA PATRIOT" is a goofy acronym, in this
case standing for "Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In
Counterterrorism Efforts
. Note that while I'll
call the acronym goofy, but the act itself is far from that. It
basically insures that a number of these special powers authorized in
the USA PATRIOT Act and other post-9/11 legislation are only used
against terrorism, that the government has to establish a connection to
terrorists in order to use "John Doe roving wire taps", "sneak and
peek" secret searches, "National Security Letters" and other procedures.
A
broad coalition supported the JUSTICE Act. Senator Leahy, however,
submitted his own bill that offered fewer limitations and protections
and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC), which Leahy heads, decided to
use it as a starting point. Many of us started to agitate to get pieces
of the JUSTICE Act supported as amendments to the Leahy bill. The
evening before the bill was taken up by the committee, Diane Feinstein,
chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee made a deal with Leahy.
An even weaker bill that she largely wrote, and which he cosponsored,
replaced the Leahy bill as the starting point. Only a small amount of
work happened on that bill last Thursday, before it was postponed until
this coming Thursday, due to conflicts caused by the Senate also doing
markup on the Health Care bill which was drawing Senators away.
And
that brings us to this week and Thursday's coming second round of
markup on the bill. We, that is grass roots civil libertarians, Get
FISA Right, the ACLU, the EFF and others, would like you as citizens,
as bloggers, as Facebook and Twitter users to make you voices heard.
We'd like you to blog, tweet and write about this effort in order to
get as many people as possible involved, and for all of you and them to
bring pressure to bear on your senators, especially if one of your
senators sits on the Judiciary Committee, and your Congressmen and any
other Senators and Congressmen you may support, contribute to or know,
to do the right thing. To work for and support amendments, whether they
come from the JUSTICE Act or other sources that restrict the
circumstances and the purposes under which these powers can be used.
Why?
Well, I started out bashing Fox coverage on this, let me now shift to
praising one Fox commentator and recommending that you listen to his
highly knowledgeable and impassioned speech against the USA PATRIOT Act
and National Security Letters. Please watch Judge Andrew Napolitano's
speech on "Natural Rights and The Patriot Act", shown here. His
explanations of the history of our Constitution, laws and the abuses of
citizens' rights regarding the USA PATRIOT Act and National Security
letters are well worth listening to whether your politics are left,
right or center. I recommend watching all three parts.
As ever,
I don't want you to just believe what I say. I want you to read and
listen and learn. Form your own opinions. I've included a number of
links to pertinent resources in the posting above and the two videos.
Get FISA Right has a
resource page
with more links and more calls to action. Please read there. Join us
when several of us live blog during the hearings on Thursday. If you
agree with us sign and retweet our Twitter petitions. Blog about what
you believe, but above all, be a Free Voice. Be a voice for freedom.