UPDATED BELOW
Firedoglake and Glenn Greenwald have the goods on the FISA Amendments Act that Stainy Whore is trying to ram through Congress. It’s a disgusting, but well-known story: Stainy, who’s up to his ears in nearly $100,000 in telecom funds is pushign a bill that extends retroactive immunity to AT&T, Verizon, and all the other usual suspects who willingly broke the law to tap our phones.
I think we know what Stainy’s motives are: what we need to do is stop him. And so far, the loudest voice possible, has been nearly completely absent.
That would be Barack Obama, who not only has yet to take action, but has supported Blue Dog and FISA fascist John Barrow in Georgia. The time has come to call upon Obama to TAKE ACTION and live up to his rhetoric that “We are the Chnage We have Been Waiting For”.
I called Mr. Obama’s campaign offices this morning at 866-675-2008, and it was well worth my time.
Tyler (the phone rep) googled greenwald while we were on the phone, and then went to strange bedfellows.
I told Tyler that while I liked Obama and had planned to vote for him, if he let the Stainy Whore FISA Amendments Act pass, it would be a dealbreaker.
“My Fourth Amendment Rights are more important than any individual politician, and we have already raised nearly $200,000 to get Steny Hoyer and anyone else connected with this. Oh and the Ron Paul money-bomb people? The guys who raised $6 million in 24 hours? Yeah, they’re on board with this too: we’re gonna raise a HUGE chunk of change and start running ads in Hoyer’s district and Barrow’s district: we already have them on the air in Carney’s district.”
“Obama has said a lot of stuff about “change we can believe in”, and I was very disappointed to see him record an ad for Barrow, who believes in gutting FISA, when there’s a great progressive, Regina Thomas challenging him. I know that as our nominee, Obama could take Steny Hoyer and John Rockefeller aside and put an immediate stop to this, and I would like to see him do so. Obama says he’s a candidate for change, but all those words mean NOTHING without action.
“Thanks for bringing this to my attention: I’m reading the Greenwald piece as we speak,” said Tyler.
“From what I understand they may vote on this as early as tonight or tomorrow,” I replied. “Obama wants to lead the country, well let’s see him lead on our Fourth Amendment rights! He will look strong for standing up to business-as-usual in defense of the Constitution.”
The guy was very responsive and said “We have an excellent messaging system, and I’ll make sure this goes to Policy right away.”
So call: it’s free and it’s worth it. 866-675-2008.
The more we call, the more of an impact we can make. CALL NOW.
866-675-2008: Obama’s Campaign
(202) 224-2854: Obama’s Senate Office
Make Stainy Whore cry at the Majority Leader’s Office 202-225-3130, and at his Congressional office, 202-225-4131.
In an indicator that Stainy’s feeling the heat, the Majority Leader’s office has now scrubbed the phone number from their site: only email is available now, but I saved the number.
UPDATE: Glennzilla has the bill, and worse than you thought:
The provision granting amnesty, Title VIII, has the exact Orwellian title it should have: “Protection of Persons Assisting the Government.” Section 802(a) provides:
[A] civil action may not lie or be maintained in a Federal or State court against any person for providing assistance to an element of the intelligence community, and shall be properly dismissed, if the Attorney General certifies to the district court of the United States in which such action is pending that . . . (4) the assistance alleged to have been provided . . . was —
(A) in connection with intelligence activity involving communications that was (i) authorized by the President during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on January 17, 2007 and (ii) designed to prevent or detect a terrorist attack, or activities in preparation of a terrorist attack, against the United States” and
(B) the subject of a written request or directive . . . indicating that the activity was (i) authorized by the President; and (ii) determined to be lawful.
So all the Attorney General has to do is recite those magic words — the President requested this eavesdropping and did it in order to save us from the Terrorists — and the minute he utters those words, the courts are required to dismiss the lawsuits against the telecoms, no matter how illegal their behavior was.
Wish I could get me some special rights like that.
It’s time go beyond calling Obama: call your representative and let them know in no uncertain terms that if they vote for this, they will be facing well-funded ads in their districts.
Let’s kick some fascist ass!
