So, Pat says it's okay if I share his letter to me:
Dear Julie,
Now that the House has passed a fair FISA bill, it's time to turn our attention back to the Senate.
Forward an email to your Senators now!
Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a strong and balanced FISA bill, legislation that protects America's national security while defending civil liberties -- without granting retroactive immunity to phone companies. Retroactive immunity would abet the Bush-Cheney Administration's efforts to avoid accountability for its actions.
This was a tremendous accomplishment -- and would not have been possible without the hard work and support from engaged citizens like you. The fight for a fair FISA bill has been waged all across the country: in the halls of Congress, on progressive political blogs, in newspaper editorial pages, on the public airwaves, and around dinner tables and water coolers from coast-to-coast.
But there's still much work to do. Now that the House has passed a fair FISA bill, it's time to turn our attention back to the Senate -- and we hope you'll join us in urging our Senate colleagues to sign on to the strong FISA legislation the House passed just last month.
Urge the Senate to support the House's strong and balanced FISA bill -- forward an email to your Senators now!
We've already seen the impact of grassroots activity on the FISA debate. Your emails, phone calls, blog posts, and letters-to-the-editor -- including more than 1,700 letters written in response to our call last month alone -- really do make a huge difference.
Now we need your help to make sure that our colleagues in the Senate know that the American people are watching -- and that they want a FISA bill that protects our national security, preserves our civil liberties, and refuses retroactive immunity to telecom companies.
Urge the Senate to support the House's strong and balanced FISA bill -- forward an email to your Senators now!
First the Bush-Cheney Administration tried to bully the House into accepting its own deeply flawed FISA legislation. Then White House officials and Congressional Republicans refused to meet with us to hammer out a better bill. And then the President and his allies blocked our attempts to temporarily extend existing surveillance legislation -- incredibly blaming Democrats for their own efforts to let the legislation expire.
You can tell them, too. LINKY
I agree that the FISA legislation passed recently by the House is much better than the FISA legislation passed by the Senate a month earlier, but the House version of FISA amendments includes a provision for a national Commission to investigate the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program. This is a letter I sent via e-mail to Senator Patrick Leahy (who is from my home State, and who has exhibited courage by resisting attempts to eviscerate FISA) on April 11, 2008:
ReplyDeleteIn my last e-mail, I sent you a commentary I wrote titled "The Fog of FISA", which was printed on OpEdNews.com on March 27, 2008, and I prefaced this commentary with a note explaining that many of your colleagues (even those that agree with you) make statements which indicate that they are as confused by FISA as the general public is. My commentary was lengthy, and I can understand that you do not have time to read all the communications that are sent to you by constituents, and I also understand that you may disagree with some of the opinions I expressed, but I would prefer no response to a non-response.
I am familiar with your own statements regarding FISA, and I usually agree with your opinions on this issue, but a national Commission to investigate the Terrorist Surveillance Program is an extremely bad idea. We already have a national Commission to investigate the Terrorist Surveillance Program, and this national Commission is known as Congress. If Congress is not able to exercise this responsibility, an independent Special Prosecutor would be far more effective than a national Commission as a tool to investigate illegal activity associated with the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
The last national Commission we had was the 9/11 Commission, and the 9/11 Commission represented a poor choice of personnel that used extremely flawed procedures to produce a report which ignored significant information. Conspiracy theorists have made many wild claims that are not even internally consistent, but the reason these theories gain traction with the public is that the 9/11 Commission did not deal with these issues directly and with transparency. We do not need a repeat of that sorry methodology.
from Blaine Kinsey
Montpelier, VT