FISA Call to Action

Dear Friend:

The Senate will soon consider legislation addressing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). I emailed you about this issue recently responding to inaccuracies in the press about Democratic efforts to improve protection of civil liberties. I am writing you today to update you on the current state of the bill and to ask for your help.

About FISA

One critical question being considered in the Senate's FISA bill is whether to offer telecom companies retroactive immunity for any actions they undertook in the wireless surveillance program. The Bush Administration has claimed that this is necessary for national security reasons, but I am skeptical.

If the Administration was serious about arguing for this immunity, I suspect they would take steps to demonstrate to Congress the extent of this surveillance program and what role the phone companies played. Yet they have refused to share even this information with the House. Clearly, it is a bit much to ask for immunity from prosecution without explaining why it is necessary.

The chances are slim that you saw much news coverage of Human Rights Day when it blew past the media radar -- as usual -- on Dec. 10. Human rights may be touted as a treasured principle in the United States, but the assessed value in medialand is apt to fluctuate widely on the basis of double standards and narrow definitions.

Every political system, no matter how repressive or democratic, is able to amp up public outrage over real or imagined violations of human rights. News media can easily fixate on stories of faraway injustice and cruelty. But the lofty stances end up as posturing to the extent that a single standard is not applied.

When U.S.-allied governments torture political prisoners, the likelihood of U.S. media scrutiny is much lower than the probability of media righteousness against governments reviled by official Washington.

But what are "human rights" anyway? In the USA, we mostly think of them as freedom to speak, assemble, worship and express opinions. Of course those are crucial rights. Yet they hardly span the broad scope that's spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We are hearing that Senate-House appropriators are near agreement on a loan guarantee package that looks like this:

$25 billion for nukes
$10 billion for renewables
$10 billion for coal to liquids
$2 billion for uranium enrichment
$2 billion for coal to gas

While the $10 billion for renewables might be welcome, the package as a whole reflects misplaced priorities and a lost opportunity to address the climate crisis. Indeed, such an energy policy would make things far worse and make it much harder to reduce carbon emissions.

Throwing taxpayer money at wealthy utilities is not the way toward a sane, sustainable energy future.

*Please call your Senators and Representative today! No loan guarantees for nuclear power (nor coal!)! Tell them to reject the entire omnibus appropriations bill if it includes such loan guarantees.

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Bob Koehler is an award-winning, syndicated columnist and editor for Tribune Media Services. He is also a rarity – a member of the mainstream media who has paid attention to the issue of election fraud.  He wrote "The Silent Scream of Numbers- The 2004 election was stolen – will someone please tell the media?" after he attended the National Election Reform Conference in Nashville in April, 2005.  The article generated a huge response from his readers. We became better acquainted when we drove together to another conference – We Count 2006 in Cleveland – the following year. We spent sixteen hours in the car together without resorting to any of the books on tape that I had taken out from the library before the trip, 'just in case.' A few months ago, we shared the podium for a program on activism, the press, and election integrity. I'm delighted that he agreed to be interviewed for OpEdNews.