CALL TO ACTION
I just got an urgent e-mail from the ACLU regarding the Patriot Act Reauthorization Bill, which is up for a vote this week. The Repubs are threatening to stop a Democratic fillibuster by invoking cloture.
Backers of the reauthorization bill claim that they have made major improvements to the Patriot Act. Don't be fooled. Adding 4-year sunsets on three provisions of the act while making the rest of the powers permanent and making the National Security Letter (NSL) powers of the FBI worse certainly does not protect our civil liberties.
Since I can't improve much on their words, I have posted more info from the ACLU site on the flip, along with their handy link that makes it easy to find and call your representatives. Please recommend, so we can have as many Kos'ers as possible make calls. We need to stop this!
Call Your Senators Now: Last Chance to Stop Sham Patriot Act Reauthorization Bill
A group of lawmakers, including Senate Judicatory Chairman Arlen Specter, have caved in to White House pressure and signed the conference committee report that fails to fix the most fundamental flaw in that law. No bill is perfect but this legislation is severely flawed because it rejects a common sense reform to require that there be some connection, any link at all, between private records about ordinary Americans and a suspected foreign terrorist before such records are secretly gathered by the FBI.
Backers of the reauthorization bill claim that they have made major improvements to the Patriot Act. Don't be fooled. Adding four-year sunsets on three provisions of the act while making the rest of the powers permanent and making the National Security Letter (NSL) powers of the FBI worse certainly does not protect our civil liberties.
A bipartisan group of Senators,-- the "civil liberties six," John Sununu (R-NH), Larry Craig (R-ID), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Ken Salazar (D-CO) -- has said they will filibuster any reauthorization bill unless it contains real reforms to protect civil liberties.
Senate leaders are expected to invoke the cloture rule, which would prohibit a filibuster on the vote. We need you to call your Senators right now and tell them to vote against cloture, support the filibuster and oppose any Patriot Act reauthorization bill that does not include real reforms.
Take Action Now! Click here to look up your Senators and call Congress:
http://action.aclu.org/...