The Rights Stuff

From the Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Beat back Telecom Immunity - Shut Down Guantanamo

Our time is now - time to use our grassroots power to hold elected officials accountable! Here are two immediate opportunities:

1. Call your senators to insist that they don't vote to let telecommunication companies off the hook for their role in warrantless wiretapping.
2. Organize locally to mark the sixth anniversary of the first detainees imprisoned at Guantanamo, January 11.

Beat Back Telecom Immunity
The people have spoken: Impartial U.S. courts with juries must decide the cases of the telecommunications companies' role in warrantless wiretapping. It must not be a political decision! Offering immunity is a cover-up that prevents government accountability.

On Monday, after a long day of Senate debate on S. 2248, the FISA Amendments Act, [http://www.bordc.org/threats/legislation/index.php#wiretap] which would have provided immunity, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, fearing a filibuster, pulled the contentious bill off the floor and postponed consideration of the bill until the Senate returns from recess on January 8, 2008.

According to the New York Times, [http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/16/5855/] the administration approached telephone companies about warrantless wiretapping in February 2001, a revelation that disproves the administration's claims that the program and immunity are justified by the threat of terrorism or by Congress's October 2001 authorization to use military force.

What you can do:
If you called your Senators to express your concerns about S. 2248, thank you! Keep it up!

We have a few weeks to call Senate offices and to meet with Senators holding January town hall meetings in their home states. Call 1-202-224-3121 today, and ask the switchboard operator to connect you to both of your senators or look up their direct office telephone numbers at www.senate.gov. Here are sample talking points:

Tell your senators either to allow the Protect America Act to sunset OR to support the Judiciary Committee version of S. 2248. Remind them that:
• The administration's wiretapping program predated the September 11th terrorist attacks, so any attempts to justify the program as narrowly focused on suspected terrorists are bogus.

- Congress must let the cases against the phone companies go forward. The American people need to know about government abuses of our Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. Granting immunity to the telecommunications companies in order to scuttle those cases has nothing to do with national security. And remember, not all telecom companies handed over customer records. The refusal of Qwest to cooperate without a warrant shows that companies had a clear choice - to follow the law, or not.
- Immunity for the telecommunications companies sets a pitiful precedent that Congress's laws are meant to be broken, and that when they are broken by the administration, the corporations or both, Congress will simply rewrite the laws to legalize their crimes and misdemeanors.

Organize to Shut Down Guantanamo January 11
BORDC is endorsing the January 11 action of Witness Against Torture to shut down Guantanamo. Our aim is to raise public awareness about the lack of due process and continued abuses that U.S. media ignores, and to explore effective strategies for demanding accountability from our elected representatives, who so far have gotten away with sanctioning much lawlessness. Organizations can endorse the national action in Washington D.C., and you (http://www.witnesstorture.org/endorse) take action in your community.

Tools and other resources for your local action can be found here: [http://www.bordc.org/newsletter/bordc-act-alert121407.php]

Meanwhile, you can learn more about the news you're missing daily about Guantanamo by reading this article by Dahlia Lithwick on the new book, "Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side", by Reprieve [http://www.reprieve.org.uk/] director Clive Stafford Smith [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/books/review/Lithwick-t.html]

Thank you for all you do!