My letter to Senator Mikulski

Okay, you might feel this is schmaltzy, but still it's one more letter to fight this FISA cave-in thingee so trendy right now
with Dems in an election year.

Senator Mikulski, I am writing you about the FISA bill that will be coming up for a Senate vote after the House has passed their "compromise." I understand that this is an election year and the Democrats wish to appear strong on National Security, just stick with the truth and you should be okay. Ashcroft forbid any checks of the terrorists to see if they purchased firearms after 9-11. There were over 140 warnings of a possible terrorist attack before 9-11, nothing was done, warnings were ignored now we have the FISA bill. I keep thinking of the classic rationale from the Nazis: "I was only following orders." We did not accept that credo then so why should we do so now. Hitler used defense of the Homeland constantly to drum up support for his programs. Gestapo translates into English as Homeland Security. Is that what we want here, I remember my parents did not talk about Hitler, their only remark whenever his name was mentioned was "Never Again." Isn't that our job to make sure that there really is a "Never Again." We have the FISA court, we have the FBI, the CIA, we have subpoenas and everything in place to deal with what we need to deal with. One of the questions the FISA court asked the FBI was why are you collecting people's bank account numbers and passwords for voicemail. If there is no accountability for what occurred, there is no guarantee that innocent Americans' key rights will be respected, esp. if they are democrats. If you must grant some concessions to the telecoms who you feel may have been coerced into cooperating with the WH on this, then cap the financial awards for damages but allow due process to occur. Please we owe it to all of America to protect the rights of her citizens now and in the future.