Activism Across America

New York’s U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey represents an oddly-shaped district that twists from Poughkeepsie on the eastern shore of the Hudson River all the way along the border with Pennsylvania up to Ithaca, New York in the Finger Lakes. Yet, he represents his constituents well, defending the constitutional freedoms in which residents of his district place their trust.

On June 20, 2008, when so many other Democrats in the House of Representatives panicked and ran into the arms of the Republicans, voting for George W. Bush’s FISA Amendments Act, Congressman Hinchey kept his head. He voted against the FISA Amendments Act.

Hinchey explained,

“The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been in effect since 1978 and provided every president and his administration since that time with the tools and resources needed to effectively monitor the activities of those wishing to harm the United States. I recognize the need to modernize our surveillance laws and have been willing to make adjustments to improve them, but sacrificing our basic civil liberties and granting de facto immunity to telecommunication companies that may have violated the law to appease the Bush administration is simply unacceptable.

The United States government should have all the tools it needs to keep us safe, but we must recognize that we can definitely achieve that goal without sacrificing the defining principles of the Constitution. Privacy rights must not be compromised simply because this administration is trying to scare everyone into believing such actions are necessary.”

Maurice Hinchey is right. The government should have all the tools it needs to keep Americans safe, provided that those tools do not violate the Americans’ rights.

The FISA Amendments Act is not a necessary tool for America’s security, and it deprives Americans of freedoms that are essential to the survival of democracy in the USA. On both counts, Maurice Hinchey did the right thing in voting NO on the FISA Amendments Act.

Thanks to Maurice Hinchey for doing the right thing, and voting with his head instead of pandering to the politics of fear.

Al Franken likes to depict himself as a well-informed, straight-talking kind of guy. Franken says that if he is elected to the United States Senate, he will stand up for the rights of voters in Minnesota.

So why is it, then, that Al Franken refuses to take a position on the FISA Amendments Act?

Go ahead and search through Al Franken’s Senate campaign web site. Search the news. Search the blogs. Nowhere does Al Franken even mention the FISA Amendments Act.

This proposed law threatens to take away Americans’ constitutional rights, and to destroy the system of checks and balances that keeps our democracy alive. The FISA Amendments Act represents one of the worst policies of George W. Bush - spying on millions of Americans without a search warrant or any other form of judicial control. The FISA Amendments Act is corrupt to the core.

So, why won’t Al Franken take a stand? Has Franken been too lazy to bother to read the FISA Amendments Act, or is he just too afraid to condemn this latest abuse from the politicians of fear?

John Linder, of Georgia’s 7th district, is a downright despicable member of Congress, and rather lazy too. When Linder does show up to vote, he almost always casts a vote the wrong way. John Linder has voted for laws banning free protest, and free speech, and for big government spying. Heck, John Linder has even voted against Head Start preschools. Picking on little kids is tacky, Congressman Linder.

Don’t think that means I’m about to endorse John Linder’s challenger, Doug Heckman. Yes, Doug Heckman has the Democratic nomination, but he’s not really much of a Democrat, to tell the truth.

Doug Heckman has endorsed the FISA Amendments Act. The FISA Amendments Act retroactively legalizes a corrupt government spying program that gathered private information about the personal communications of millions of Americans so that George W. Bush and his aides could look at them at their leisure.

Doug Heckman had the gall to state recently, “This bill ensures—as Senator Obama said recently—that ’somebody’s watching the watchers.’”

Pardon me, but has Doug Heckman even read the FISA Amendments Act? No one who has actually read the law could say such a ridiculous thing. The FISA Amendments Act does not ensure that “somebody’s watching the watchers”. What the FISA Amendments Act actually does is give the Attorney General of the United States the authority to set massive spy operations against Americans into action, and then make the Attorney General the sole person in all the federal government to certify that the spying is taking place according to the law.

Look on page 77, Mr. Heckman. Read it. You’ll see quite clearly that there’s nobody watching the watchers except the watchers themselves. The FISA Amendments Act puts the fox in charge of guarding the henhouse.

No one, and I mean no one, so profoundly stupid as to endorse the FISA Amendments Act deserves any citizen’s vote. That goes for Democrats as well as Republicans.

John Linder ought to be kicked out of Congress, but to be honest, Doug Heckman wouldn’t be much of an improvement. I have advice to the Democrats of Georgia’s 7th congressional district: In 2010, why don’t you nominate someone for Congress who is knows the Constitution, and who actually reads laws before he endorses them?

Today at noon in Palo Alto, California, the FCC - Federal Communications Commission - will hold a public meeting to discuss and hear public comments about issues related to the development of the Internet

If I could be there, I might make a comment about network neutrality, or about the need to develop protections for the Internet-using public from illegal spying by the government on our private Internet activities without a search warrant.

How would you comment?

Well, actually, you can comment. No matter where you are. Go to http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.cgi and enter proceeding number 07-52.

Location: Dinkelspiel Auditorium
471 Lagunita Drive
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California

Thanks to Free Press for bringing this to our attention.