A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the US military. A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a "threat," and one of more than 1,500 "suspicious incidents" across the country over a recent 10-month period.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121405Z.shtml

A bipartisan group of senators have agreed to fight the Patriot Act—by filibuster if necessary. The law currently goes too far in curtailing our civil liberties and they're fighting back. The Senate will vote as soon as Thursday. This is the time to act.

This is a huge moment. Senators from both parties are standing together to protect privacy and liberty in a time of war—and they're ready to go all the way. It's important to support them and to show those who are still on the fence how important this issue is to you. Will you help us reach 250,000 signatures on our petition by Thursday so we can deliver them in time for the vote?

http://political.moveon.org/patriotact/?id=6528-5860861-l9VbnwjVnkVyUTWStYCHaw&t=2

If this filibuster holds, Congress could vote to temporarily extend the Patriot Act as it stands—allowing time for a new, better version that addresses the big problems in the law. This would be a huge victory for those of us who believe that liberty is non-negotiable.

The tide is turning in Congress. Leaders in Washington are beginning to demand accountability from the Bush administration on everything from Iraq to the use of torture. Now it looks like President Bush's plan to pass a new and more dangerous version of the Patriot Act is also in trouble.1

In 2001, only one senator voted against the Patriot Act. Since then, people from all across the political spectrum have come to realize that the Patriot Act strikes a blow to the fundamental rights, liberties, and privacy of all Americans. Protecting freedom is something that all of us—progressives and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans—can agree on.

That's why a bipartisan group of senators, including Republicans Larry Craig, John Sununu, Lisa Murkowski and Democrats Russ Feingold, Dick Durbin and Ken Salazar, have been working to fix the Patriot Act. They have vowed to fight the most egregious provisions and filibuster reauthorization if necessary. We need to show them that we have their backs.

The Patriot Act that the president wants them to pass now goes too far and doesn't protect the privacy of innocent Americans. It doesn't address some of the biggest problems in the law. For example:2

* The government can obtain your private records, like medical, library, school, and other records—without showing any connection between your activities and and a suspected foreign terrorist.

* Some 30,000 National Security Letters ("NSLs") are issued each year to obtain private records,3 and the recipients of those NSLs are under a gag order that is almost impossible to overturn. But the Patriot Act does nothing to address these abusive powers.

* The government is allowed to get "sneak and peek" search warrants to search a home or business and doesn't have to tell the owner of the premises for a month. This power can be used in cases that don't have anything to do with terrorism.

Right now, the Patriot Act is just bad law about to get worse—and leaders in the Washington are actually willing to try to block it. We can't let our only chance to fix it slip away without a fight.

Hundreds of thousands of signatures on a petition like this will show the Senate how serious Americans are about protecting their constitutional freedoms. Will you sign the petition and show your support for filibustering a Patriot Act that doesn't include privacy protections?

http://political.moveon.org/patriotact/?id=6528-5860861-l9VbnwjVnkVyUTWStYCHaw&t=3

Together, we can make sure we're safe—and our freedom is safe, too.

Thanks for all you do,

–Eli, Nita, Ben, Jennifer and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team Tuesday, December 13th, 2005

Sources:

1. ACLU: Reform the Patriot Act
http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/

2. ACLU: Summary of Patriot Reauthorization Act Conference Report
http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/patriotdraft.html

3. "The FBI's Secret Scrutiny," Washington Post, November 6, 2005
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1263


Informant: Andrea Ball

Last week we were honored to have Congressman Murtha speak to our DCCC members. His call for an honest debate on Iraq has already garnered more support from our members than any other campaign we've launched this year.

We hope to deliver 50,000 names to the Speaker of the House, and right now we have more than 30,000 -- if you believe this Republican Congress has abdicated its responsibility long enough, please join us:

Tell Congress to Have an Honest Debate on Iraq For the Safety of Our Troops.

http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=102BD2F:4092A66

Hours after we launched this petition, the Republicans aired another example of their smear political stunts. From the beginning, Republicans have substituted divisive, over-the-line political attacks for substantive policy in Iraq. The campaign to sell America on war was carefully planned and brilliantly executed -- but it was clear that they had literally been too busy with the sales pitch to plan for the peace.

Last week President Bush released what he called a "Strategy for Victory in Iraq." Days later, we found out that it had been written by a pollster. Another few days after that we learned where the real Republican focus was -- they released a web ad so scurrilous that even a Republican Senator said they should take it down.

With a full-scale media blitz, the Republican National Committee released their "White Flag" campaign, attempting to smear Democrats like John Murtha as unpatriotic, undermining our troops and advocating "surrender." This is their substitute for real debate. The DCCC has put together a video to counterpunch their continued personal attacks. Attacking Democrats is not a plan for success in Iraq. I hope you will watch the DCCC video, sign the petition and then tell them to get their attention back on finding a real solution to the problems in Iraq:

Tell Congress to Have an Honest Debate on Iraq For the Safety of Our Troops.

http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=102BD2F:4092A66

For more than 1,000 days of war, the Republican Congress has counted itself out. There has been no oversight of the White House, and no serious debate on our future in Iraq.

This cannot go on -- the stakes are too high. We will deliver your name, along with tens of thousands of others, to the Speaker of the House before Congress goes home for recess. Please take a moment to watch the new video from the DCCC and to sign on to John Murtha's call for an honest debate:

Tell Congress to Have an Honest Debate on Iraq For the Safety of Our Troops.

http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=102BD2F:4092A66


Sincerely,

John Lapp Executive Director, DCCC


PS: We must show this Republican Congress how many Americans support John Murtha. Tell Congress to have an honest debate on Iraq for the safety of our troops.

http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=102BD2F:4092A66

http://hometown.aol.com/wbflegal/TraficantWhyinJail.html


Informant: Milo

Christian Science Monitor
by Danny Heitman

12/13/05

In the days after hurricane Katrina, as I hustled to restore our Baton Rouge household to normal, my 9-year-old daughter's Christmas wish list grew longer by the hour. With increasing frequency, as I hauled fallen limbs to the curb and packed away the portable generator, my daughter would tug on my sleeve to announce yet another doll or video game that she wanted under the yuletide tree. I recoiled at the timing of her material longings. We were among the fortunate ones, after all - south Louisiana residents who had dodged most of the hurricane's wrath with no real damage to life or limb. We had reminded our kids quite often of our good fortune, and it seemed that my 9-year-old, young though she is, should have been old enough to know that this wasn't the week to wish for more. Why was she focused on filling her toy box in the midst of so much misery, with New Orleans evacuees arriving literally next door?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1213/p09s02-coop.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The American Prospect
by Matthew Yglesias

12/13/05

Having argued with tedious frequency for the proposition that the United States needs to look for ways to head for the exit doors in Iraq, I'm naturally heartened, in some ways, by a recent uptick in anti-war sentiment among the Democratic Party's leaders. Nevertheless, advocacy of withdrawal within the liberal community has long been bedeviled by a fairly vicious case of what I like to call the 'pundit's fallacy' -- assertions that the key to electoral success is for a party or political leader to adopt the writer's policy preferences. In their December 12 issue, for example, the editors of The Nation argue that 'Democrats must recognize, as [John] Murtha has, that by putting aside politics and doing what is right for the country they will not only establish their party as the alternative that is needed; they will isolate the Administration and create a space where sensible Republicans can join a new bipartisan drive to get this country's troops out of the Iraq quagmire.' The basis for this proposition is the view that 'the public has turned against the war'...

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10722


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AlterNet
by Stephen Pizzo

12/14/05

"For once the Republican attack machine has described the Democratic Party perfectly: retreat and defeat. It's what Democrats are all about now. I'm not talking about the Democrats' position (if they had one) on Bush's fool's errand of a war in Iraq. I'm talking about how Democrats have flatly refused to stand and fight the war here at home, the war for America's own democracy. Democrats remind me of the that group of kids in every grammar school whose members were not smart enough to be dorks nor tough enough to be knuckle-dragging jocks. They are stuck in a social vacuum of sorts. Every now and then one of them gets some backbone and declares he's 'gonna show those jocks.' To which his frustrated friends eagerly egg him on. So he tosses an insult or rock at the school thugs, who of course immediately counter attack. His friends desert him leaving him screaming, 'it was an accident, honest. I didn't mean it.' After which the thugs would beat the c... out of him anyway...

http://www.alternet.org/story/29552/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Rebirth of Reason
by Tibor R. Machan

12/14/05

Sometimes discussions get bogged down completely because the issues are cast improperly, as in the case of whether Iraq and other countries around the globe could become liberal democracies. President Bush and his defenders appear to consider it an offense to the people in such countries when skeptics question whether they are 'ready for democracy.' And there is a point to finding that line of doubt offensive. In principle, as a basic aspect of our lives, human beings can, of course, improve themselves on all levels, including the political. ... Yet, extremely powerful psychological and sociological forces make such reforms very hard to achieve in our lives. That's especially so when it comes to changing massive institutional obstacles that stand in the way to making improvements in various countries across the globe...

http://tinyurl.com/87c7b


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

12/14/05

The other day, when Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) suggested that it's time for George W. Bush to form a 'war cabinet,' everybody knew what he had in mind. Rumors of Donald Rumsfeld's departure from the Department of Defense were (and are) rife, and it was clear Lieberman was proposing himself as a replacement. Aside from the brazenly self-promotional aspect of this gambit, however, there is the rhetorical conceit of pretending that we're in the position of Britain during the blitz. This is so typical of the neoconservative vocabulary of crisis-mongering that it has evolved into an ideological tic: their response to any criticism, any deviation from their totalist conception of the 'war on terrorism,' is an outraged cry: 'Don't you know there's a war on?' Lieberman resorted to this tack most recently upon returning from his latest visit to Iraq, whereupon he announced: 'In matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.' As if 'we' are responsible for this administration's lack of credibility...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8238


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

LewRockwell.Com
by Butler Shaffer

12/14/05

For all the many reasons I hold political systems in utter contempt, this is by far the most dominant: the state is in a constant war with all of life. It always has been and it always will be, and no mouthing by politicians of empty bromides about 'caring' will ever change this fundamental fact. Political systems war against the spontaneous and self-directed nature of all living systems, using violence as a weapon to force life to go in directions it does not choose. The state is the most fundamentally indecent of all human inventions, a fact that most of us prefer to keep from our conscious mind, which we obfuscate with lies and rationalizations; anesthetize with drugs or alcohol; or trivialize with entertainment-as-news. The most contemptible expression of the state's war against life is found in its abuse, maiming, and slaughter of children...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer125.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp