Ask the President results (belatedly) ... and a question for Harry Reid
Published April 01, 2009 @ 07:31AM PT
Thanks everybody who voted for and tweeted about our Ask the President question:
Before you were elected, you committed to having your attorney general review domestic surveillance policy. What are your plans and timeframe to get FISA right?
We wound up with 268 yes votes, 16 no for +252 net and an astonishing 94% approval rating. Depending on how you look at it, we finished #7 (in terms of net votes) or #1 (in terms of approval rating). Bob Fertik's special prosecutor question was at 1020 yes, 371 no, 73% approval, and finished #3 in net votes at +640. Congratulations all!
Of course Ask the President was just a vehicle. Our goals were getting more coverage of FISA and domestic wiretapping issues, and resuming our dialog with President Obama.
What to ask President Obama?
Published March 17, 2009 @ 10:34AM PT
Ask the President is launching this Thursday. Details aren't public yet, but from the Twitter discussions so far, it seems like the basic idea is to provide a followon to Change.gov's short-lived Open for Questions series [1, 2]: a way for people to submit potential questions and vote on what they think the best ones are.
Hmm.
This is the kind of stuff that Get FISA Right has done well in the past, for example finishing #5 in change.org's Ideas for Change in America. As well as resuming our dialog with President Obama, If we can get somebody to ask a FISA-related question at a White House press conference it'll also be a great chance for publicity. FISA and the PATRIOT Act are starting to be in the news a little, and this is a different angle for reporters to cover; we got so much attention last summer that plenty of media folks know who we are. The story practically writes itself: "Following on their previous success on MyBO, the social network-savvy activists at Get FISA RIght have done it again ..."
So even though we don't know a lot about the format yet, let's start thinking now about what kind of question we'd like to ask. Maybe something like:
What are President Obama's plans to get FISA right?
In then-Senator Obama's note on FISA last summer, he stated his opposition to telecom immunity, and talked of his intent to have the new attorney general review all domestic surveillance programs and "to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future." Since you taking office, though, the Obama DOJ has followed the Bush Administration line on immunity and in the in the Al-Haramain case. When and how does President Obama intend to follow up on his campaign promises on FISA?
What does it mean to "get FISA right"?
Published March 04, 2009 @ 08:04AM PT
As a member of "Get FISA Right", I find myself asking, "What does 'get it right' mean?" I don't have a definitive answer, but let me give a few thoughts as a basis for a discussion of the topic.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was originally passed in 1978 order to balance the legitimate need to spy on the nation's foreign enemies, with the Constitutional rights of her citizens, and especially to curb existing abuse. Technology has changed dramatically since it was written, and our enemies are different. Also, there has been a new round of abuse. All of these must be addressed.
To "get it right", let me suggest that we need:
- One law that covers all spying
- Require warrants when the US spies on
- Anyone in the US
- US persons (citizens and resident aliens) anywhere
- Allow the intelligence agencies to spy freely on foreigners oversees, even if the taps are in the US
- Require Executive, Judicial and Congressional oversight when protected and unprotected communications are entangled.
- Criminalize violation of the Constitution.
Item #4 is a knotty one. Since foreign and domestic traffic flows through the same "pipes" and is in the clear, and it is not easy to tell just from the content who the participants are, software that sorts what can legally be captured from what cannot can violate the Constitution and the law if it uses the wrong algorithm or has a bug. This is what the "targeting" and "minimization" procedures are all about. There must be diligent oversight, and it requires esoteric expertise. It requires nerds and Constitutional Law experts. And the jurisdiction to oversee.
#5 may seem superfluous, but is important. If your Constitutional rights are violated, you can sue, but only if you prove you have "standing". If the violation was done in secret, that can be hard to prove. If the criminal law is violated, the Department of Justice and Law Enforcement can and should investigate and prosecute.
That's my framework. What do you think?
For a longer discussion, let me recommend the following blogs from last summer (disclaimer: #3 is by me):
- David Kris's "A Guide to the New FISA Bill", Part I, Part II and Part III.
- Wes Walls' "Understanding Recent Changes to FISA -- A Visual Guide (Flowchart)"
- Jim Burrows' "I think I understand the FISA bill. Do I?" (at Blogspot. Also on Daily Kos, LiveJournal, MySpace, and Vox)
- Wes Walls' "FISA Revisited"
- Paul Russell's three-part "Figuring Out FISA"
Get FISA Right to meet with Sen. Feingold! (maybe) Help wanted.
Published February 11, 2009 @ 03:38PM PT
One of our topics Saturday's conference call (notes here) was how to make contact with our allies in congress. Jean from Green Bay mentioned that she and a couple of other people were going to go to one of Senator Russ Feingold's upcoming Listening Meeting in Wisconsin.
The first opportunity is this Saturday on Valentine's day (February 14) at a Listening Meeting in Chilton, events in Madison and potentially Milwaukee on March 1, a cable advertising opportunity in Green Bay on March 4, and more. To keep track of it all, we're going to use a wiki page as the planning hub for this.
Here's the current versions of our goals for the project:
- get a better understanding of the situation in Congress and Senator Feingold's strategy
- get Sen Feingold to make a video on "what it means to get FISA right"
- introduce ourselves to Senator Feingold and get a working relationship in place
- pilot techniques that we can use as part of a 50-state strategy
- get blog and media attention, at least at the local and state level, and hopefully nationally as well
Get FISA Right: dailyish update
Published February 05, 2009 @ 12:05PM PT
Note: see the Communications Channels post and the Next dailyish update page on the wiki for more on the "daily update" process. There's plenty of room for improvement; feedback welcome. If anybody would like to volunteer to do the next daily update, please leave a comment!
Next conference call
Saturday February 7, 2 p.m. Pacific/5 PM eastern. Topics: communications, change.org, ad.
Draft agenda and dialin information at http://tinyurl.com/ccxedh
Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=122117005117
MyBO event: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpt2dy
change.org update
First post up at http://www.change.org/ideas/28/view_blog/greetings_to_the_changeorg_community -- please stop by and introduce yourself! I'll also post the dailyish update there.
Get FISA Right
Published February 03, 2009 @ 10:59AM PT
Speaking both for myself and the Get FISA Right activism campaign, it's a real thrill to have been voted one of the top ten Ideas for Change in America. Thanks to the 12,285 of you who voted for us -- and our 33 endorsers! We view using change.org and the MySpace as a key part of our strategy for the year as we ramp up to put pressure on Congress when the PATRIOT Act (and hopefully FISA as well) is debated this fall.
We'll be using this blog, along with http://getfisaright.wordpress.com, for updates and discussions. In this first post, I'll share a bit about who we are -- and invite people here to introduce themselves as well.
About Get FISA Right
FISA and the PATRIOT Act strike at the core of our Fourth and First Amendment Rights and institutionalize a surveillance society.
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