John Conyers & Patrick Leahy: Join Our Team To Fix FISA

Via E-Mail:

Dear Cary:

As the chairmen of the U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees tasked with modernizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), we are working hard in Congress to pass a FISA bill that protects our national security, preserves our civil liberties, and denies the Senate's retroactive immunity to phone companies that participated in the Bush-Cheney Administration warrantless surveillance program.

Now we're at a critical juncture. The House and Senate have passed different versions of the new FISA legislation, and we are meeting to resolve those differences. The president and his Republican allies are using this opportunity to pressure our colleagues to give in and grant retroactive immunity. President Bush has been irresponsibly making false claims that we are more vulnerable to terrorism while this bill remains

That's why we need your help, right now, to push back against the White House while the final FISA bill is being negotiated. Will you write a letter-to-the-editor of your local newspaper to speak out and build grassroots support for fixing FISA the right way? Help us respond to White House scare tactics, preserve our civil liberties, and reject the Senate's telecom immunity.

Click here to send a FISA letter-to-the-editor to your hometown paper now.

We're pushing back against right-wing pressure. So now the Bush-Cheney Administration is ratcheting up their scare tactics and suggesting that congressional Democrats' efforts to get the FISA bill right this time will invite another terrorist attack. They are trying to scare Congress and the American people into accepting a FISA bill that includes the Senate-passed retroactive telecom immunity and erodes our privacy rights.

They've even launched a controversial television ad evoking ticking time-bomb imagery straight out of primetime's 24 to shock the American people into supporting another flawed FISA law. We've seen these tactics before, but we can't let them get away with it this time. We are pushing for a better FISA bill in Congress, but a few loud voices in Washington are more determined than ever to ram through another flawed piece of legislation.

Help build grassroots support across America and fight back against the right-wing fear machine:

Visit FixFISA now.

Your letter-to-the-editor will ensure that friends and neighbors in your own community see past the Bush-Cheney Administration's fear-mongering. And when your Members of Congress turn to the editorial page in their hometown newspaper, they'll know where you stand on siding with those who conducted illegal warrantless surveillance.

We have teamed up to push for a final FISA bill that protects our national security, preserves our civil liberties, and refuses the Senate-passed retroactive immunity for telecom companies. But we need your support to get this bill passed.

Thank you for taking the time to write a letter-to-the-editor of your local newspaper and for working with us to get FISA right this time.

Sincerely,

John Conyers
Chairman
House Judiciary Committee

Patrick Leahy
Chairman
Senate Judiciary Committee

and Senator Leahy. Don't back down like you did on Mukasey. The ultimate result is in YOUR hands.

:kick: & R

Sen. Leahy voted against confirmation.

Rep. Conyers didn't get to vote (confirmation of course being in the Senate).

Senators Schumer and Feinstein are the only two congressional Democrats who backed down.

hearing until he received the subpoenaed materials from the WH on the US Attorneys' firings. He didn't get them, and he scheduled the hearings anyway.

When Bush broke the law, he should have been impeached immediately. You don't allow him to break the law and then change the law for him.

to the editor:

The GWBush administration has displayed a breathtaking disdain for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the law, and the people of this country since taking over the White House following the debacle of the 2000 election. Now they are pushing for retroactive immunity for telecom companies who helped them break privacy laws purportedly in an effort to fight off terrorists.

Anyone who hopes as I do, to see the criminals in this administration face justice should be speaking out against any such immunity. Because of the government's constant use of the "state secrets" law, the only way for the public to learn the full extent of their lawbreaking is within the context of a civil lawsuit brought against one of these companies, who aided and abetted the administration in an unlawful endeavor.

No immunity. Justice for the United States.

And now they need the people to support them . Voting is supporting them and it's their damn job to stop this .

If they are so afraid to act then they should have stepped aside and allowed someone brave to do the work .

Conyers with his impeachment folder and does nothing about it .

broke the law to account. You want to "fix" something, fix that. Arrest, try, imprison, impeach (not necessarily in that order)

Why bother re-writing a law when you won't enforce the one's already on the books.