FISA Vote Tomorrow

Posted by Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake at 7:17 AM on July 7, 2008.

Tomorrow is the vote on the FISA bill. What say we welcome back Senators and their staffs from the 4th of July holiday with a rousing bit of patriotic support for the rule of law?

Last week, Blue America launched a call tool to help you get in touch with Senators regarding the FISA bill. We'd like you to put it to some serious use today.

We are asking Senators to vote IN FAVOR of the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy Amendment (S.A. 5064 to H.R. 6304). We're asking for a NO vote on cloture, and a NO vote on the final bill as well.

We also launched a tool last week to help you track activity and elected official public appearances in your area.

The hope is that it has helped and will continue to help you organize action in your neighborhood and to connect with other folks who want to do the same. If you were active over the weekend -- with signs, meetings, and what not -- and have pictures or video to share, please send them along. We'd love to see and share some action from all of you!

What I hope gives members of Congress the most pause -- other than the audacity to try and argue with a straight face to any of us that allowing the president and his cronies to get away with breaking the law by giving them an immunity pass is the only way to get them to uphold the law (say what?!?) -- is that even Peter Beinart says this is a crap maneuver to vote for this FISA bill. (Good lord, I'm agreeing with Peter Beinart for hell's sakes. Will this madness never end?)

Snuggly the Security Bear thinks not. I'm hoping he's wrong.

Sen. Russ Feingold has a fact sheet about the current FISA bill that contains useful information on the various problems with the bill -- and there are many problems. Looseheadprop and the great folks at EFF walk through Judge Walker's FISA smackdown decision, as does Glenn. KagroX provides the nightmare scenario, and McJoan administers a well-earned smackdown. Because, as BooMan suggests, there really isn't any privacy left, anyway. The stupid, it burns.

Jane suggested some great questions for your elected folks -- try them out and see if you get real answers!

And for inspiration purposes, Glenn hits the reasons why this is important, and I put together some quotes on why citizen participation is the only way anything ever changes. So, let's get to work...

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