{"id":1163,"date":"2009-11-22T12:39:55","date_gmt":"2009-11-22T19:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talesfromthe.net\/jon\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2009-11-22T12:39:55","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T19:39:55","slug":"an-open-letter-to-president-obama-on-the-patriot-act-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2009\/11\/22\/an-open-letter-to-president-obama-on-the-patriot-act-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"An open letter to President Obama on the Patriot Act (DRAFT)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Draft!  Work in progress!\u00c2\u00a0 Feedback welcome!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">The open letter will be published Monday evening, and this will be one of many posts announcing it.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Final version intended for Pam&#8217;s House Blend<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/getfisaright.wordpress.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Get FISA Right logo\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3198\/3046160741_a8dd6a3b40.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a>Dear President Obama,<\/p>\n<p>In response to Get FISA Right\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s July 2008 <a href=\"http:\/\/get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com\/page\/An+open+letter+to+Senator+Obama\">Open Letter<\/a>, you <a href=\"http:\/\/my.barackobama.com\/page\/community\/post\/rospars\/gGxsZF\/\">promised<\/a> to run \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a White House that takes the Constitution seriously, conducts the peoples\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 business out in the open, welcomes and listens to dissenting views, and asks you to play your part in shaping our country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s destiny.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 With Patriot Act and FISA reform once again before Congress, we would like to accept your invitation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; from Get FISA Right&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/getfisaright.wordpress.com\/2009\/11\/21\/revised-draft-of-open-letter-to-obama\/\"><em>An Open Letter on the Patriot Act<\/em><\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Please sign on at xxxx.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The December 31 deadline for reauthorizing three key clauses of the Patriot Act &#8212; and the possibility of introducing reforms in the process &#8212; is fast approaching.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 While the legislative details are complex* the basic outline of the debate is straightforward:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>pro-civil liberties Democrats are proposing significant new protections<\/li>\n<li>Republicans and &#8220;independent&#8221; Joe Lieberman are proposing reauthorization without any new protections<\/li>\n<li>Blue Dogs are somewhere in between<\/li>\n<li>the Obama administration has spoken of its openness to reform, but during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings worked behind the scenes with Senator Sessions to significantly weaken the legislation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s not the change I thought I was voting for.<\/p>\n<h1>What we want<\/h1>\n<blockquote><p>We ask you and your administration to take a strong stand to support significant reform of key sections of the Patriot Act, incuding National Security Letters, Section 215, Lone Wolf, Sneak and peak, and material support.\u00c2\u00a0 Legislatively, we ask for your public support of HR 3845 and 3846, and amendments adding similar protections to S 1692.<\/p>\n<p>Just as importantly, in light of your promises regarding open government, we ask you to respect the people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s passion regarding our rights as citizens and to respond in an open and transparent way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s all very reminiscent of the situation last summer, when Get FISA Right organized on my.barackobama.com to protest then-Senator Obama&#8217;s support for the Bush Administration&#8217;s odious legislation.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s pretty incredible when you think about it.\u00c2\u00a0 In the heat of a presidential campaign, a bunch of us met each other online, wrote a letter to the next President of the US &#8230; and got enough attention that he wrote back!\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 True, he didn&#8217;t change his position.\u00c2\u00a0 But the episode showed the power of grassroots organizing on social networks &#8212; and established a base for an ongoing dialog.<\/p>\n<table border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Since then, the protest on my.barackobama.com has justifiably gone down as a watershed for online organizing in the US.\u00c2\u00a0 Yay us!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, and Obama&#8217;s become President; we congratulated him by <a href=\"http:\/\/getfisaright.wordpress.com\/2009\/01\/19\/congratulations-president-obama-please-get-fisa-right\/#more-228\">airing an ad in Washington DC on Inauguration Day<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Disappointingly, though, the Obama Administration has largely followed the Bush Administration&#8217;s line on civil liberties.\u00c2\u00a0 Not to sound like a broken record or anything, but that&#8217;s not the change I thought I was voting for.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>President Obama, the Organizing for America caption still reads, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m asking you to believe in yours.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We believe, and hope you do too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In one of our many discussions about the open letter, Sally G paraphrased Obama&#8217;s response to us as saying that although we might disagree, grassroots activism was part of the reason for his success, and that he expected to be held accountable.\u00c2\u00a0 Who knows, it might just have been a line to mollify his angry supporters.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;d rather believe that he meant it, and that by working to get him elected we have indeed brought real change to Washington.\u00c2\u00a0 We shall see.<\/td>\n<td><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"287\" height=\"232\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/n8c8KJVLsP4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"287\" height=\"232\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/n8c8KJVLsP4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h1>Why he should listen<\/h1>\n<blockquote><p>Americans of all stripes have grown increasingly wary of giving up liberty for the illusion of security.\u00c2\u00a0 Get FISA Right\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 23,000 community organizers are the largest grassroots issue-oriented group on Organizing for America, and we are only one of many organizations across the political spectrum working to restore or civil liberties&#8230;. If you join us, you can inspire the same wave of grassroots energy that propelled you to the Presidency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Why should Obama listen to us?\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s a question we wrestled a lot with while writing the letter.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The ongoing questions about OFA&#8217;s effectiveness, the Democrats&#8217; difficulty in engaging their 2008 base, and what looks to be a difficult 2010 election season for the Democrats all give us some leverage here.<\/p>\n<p>The downside from not listening to us is fairly obvious.\u00c2\u00a0 Losing our support would present another challenge for the 2010 elections.\u00c2\u00a0 And as happened last summer, we could tap into a larger narrative about Obama&#8217;s disenchanted activists &#8212; almost certainly stories that the administration doesn&#8217;t want to see.<\/p>\n<p>In the letter, we focus instead on the opportunity.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that Obama, and his key political strategists, understand that they won the election in large part thanks to their social network strategy &#8212; the unique combination of my.barackobama.com and their presence on YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, BlackPlanet and the other sites.\u00c2\u00a0 Since the election, though, OFA has been unable to\u00c2\u00a0 reactivating this energy to cut through obstructionism in Congress.\u00c2\u00a0 As a result, the administration&#8217;s ambitious legislative agenda is moving painfully slowly.\u00c2\u00a0 The Patriot Act battle is the perfect opportunity for President Obama to change the situation by aligning himself firmly with the grassroots activists who put him in office.<\/p>\n<p>We hope he&#8217;ll see it that way too.<\/p>\n<h1>How you can help<\/h1>\n<p>Of course, the first step to that is just getting him to see it &#8212; he&#8217;s got a lot on his plate.\u00c2\u00a0 As with last summer, the plan is for a groundswell of support and attention in the blogosphere, leading to attention from mainstream media.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to be part of that groundswell, here&#8217;s how you can help:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>sign on via the BORDC&#8217;s site here<\/li>\n<li>if you&#8217;re on Twitter, sign the act.ly petition<\/li>\n<li>if you&#8217;re on Facebook and MySpace, share this post on your profile<\/li>\n<li>if you&#8217;ve got a blog, please repost the open letter and ask your readers to sign on.\u00c2\u00a0 there&#8217;s a template for a sample post at XXXX<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As Obama said many times as a candidate, change doesn&#8217;t come from Washington; change comes to Washington.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Together we can reject the politics of fear, and turn the page on the abuses to our constitutional rights of the last 8 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Please join us.<\/p>\n<p>jon<\/p>\n<p>* Kim Zetter&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/threatlevel\/2009\/11\/patriot-act\/\">Handy Chart Tracks Proposed Amendments to the Patriot Act<\/a> on Wired&#8217;s Threat Level gives an overview of the bills reported out from the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, and links of to Center for Democracy and Technology&#8217;s detailed analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Draft! Work in progress!\u00c2\u00a0 Feedback welcome! The open letter will be published Monday evening, and this will be one of many posts announcing it. Final version intended for Pam&#8217;s House Blend<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,120,149,162],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activism","tag-drafts","tag-fisa","tag-getfisaright"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}