Call your senators now re: the FISA bill

I got this in an email a bit ago - it's sort of directed at California voters but has other info as well

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The entire bill contains other unfortunate attacks on our constitutional rights. It can be divided into two broad categories: Civil Immunity for the Telecoms, and various and confusing attacks on our civil liberties elsewhere in the bill.

Immunity is particularly offensive, as once granted, it cannot be revoked. All the rest could be reversed in a more progressive environment.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon has the fullest analysis of this; you will need to scroll down though his column to get to all the material: http://www.salon.com/opinion /greenwald/

Kevin Drum of CBS has a good column explaining the attacks on our civil liberties here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories /2008/06/22/politics/animal /main4200909.shtml


Barack Obama has taken a questionable position on this, and needs input from citizens. He has indicated a preference that immunity be stripped from the bill, but has so far shown no enthusiasm to fight against the destruction of our civil liberties encapsulated in the rest of the bill.

Tactically, I would suggest that we ask that he lead the effort to strip the bill of immunity, and should that fail, that he leads the filibuster. It is hard to imagine that a Democratic senator would vote for cloture when the presumptive nominee is leading the filibuster.

And if immunity is stripped from the bill, Bush has pledged to veto it, problem solved.

Please call Obama’s campaign at: (866) 675-2008. Request Obama lead the effort to strip the bill of immunity, and ask that he pledge publicly to lead the filibuster if the bill comes to the floor with immunity included. If you are a monthly donor, ask to end that arrangement (you can start it up again after this shakes out). Do so live on the phone, for real impact. If you have donated money in the past, ask for a refund. You won’t get it, but you will send a message. Also call his Senate office: (202) 224-2854.

As for Hillary Clinton, she has indicated an intention to vote against the bill, however, as Feinstein has done before, this could be a ruse. Call her office at: (202) 224-4451.

Dianne Feinstein is at (202) 224-3841.

Barbara Boxer deserves a call, mostly to encourage her to fight to the last drop of blood: (202) 224-3553. Likewise Russ Feingold: (202) 224-5323 and Robert Byrd: (202) 224-3954.

Christopher Dodd led the filibuster last time out: (202) 224-2551. Not speaking about it publically no one knows Joe Biden’s position on this, but he needs a call: (202) 224-5042. Likewise Dick Durbin: (202) 224-2152.

And Harry Reid is at: (202) 224-3542. Call his office and ask that he either strip immunity from the bill or pull the bill off the floor.

A full list of the Democratic senators is here: (US SENATE)
Feel free to call any others that occur to you.

We apparently have until Friday to get this done. If you actually talk to ten people, you have done an adequate job. But especially get after Obama. It could well be that he is the only pol with the power to stop this now. Call twice a day and give him your two cents on basic rights.

The House passed a version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) last week that included retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that conspired in Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. And now, as the bill heads to the Senate, it looks like we have one last chance to stop this massive erosion of the rule of law.

Thankfully, we have a few champions, like Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd, who look poised to fight this to the very end, but they can't do it alone. They need both strong support from progressive senators and the vote of those senators currently sitting on the fence. This is where you come in.

Senators Clinton and Schumer could be the deciding voices and vote on stopping retroactive immunity. Please take a minute right now to give them a call and ask them to strip the retroactive immunity provision of FISA.

You can call either by dialing the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or by using our list of direct number for target senators.

After you are done with the call, please take a moment to let us know how the call went.

Senator Feingold effectively summed up the insanity of retroactive immunity yesterday by saying, "It doesn't simply have the impact of potentially allowing telephone companies to break the law. It may prevent us from ever getting to the core issue...which is the president ran an illegal program that could've been an impeachable offense."

I hope that you'll join me and do what you can to help prevent this from happening.

Thank you,

Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake

Cornhole and Hutch have ze very Bush brown noses.

Like Feingold, Dodd and Boxer?

I hear Obama HQ is getting slammed with calls about this.

:toast:

I'll do it again.

This usually means he plans to vote the way I don't want him to.

"Dear Senator (Levin/Stabenow), I am writing a brief message to ask you to vote against the FISA bill coming up Wednesday, and to support a filibuster if it comes up. It sounds like the telcos may have been breaking the law BEFORE 9/11, and that needs to be investigated. Thank you "

Dodd will already do the right thing.

Shays already screwed us over.

to let him know that I wanted the senator to filibuster this FISA bill and oppose retroactive telecom immunity.

I didn't bother calling Lieberman's office. I wasn't sure if I could control my temper with LIE-berman.

If you've got the time to complain about it on DU, you have the time to call a few Senators. Even the hopeless ones - if nothing else, it'll annoy them.

:kick: and call!

:kick: and call!

:kick: and call!