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thisfinecrewI get email from a variety of activist groups (as I suspect many of you do). They're often asking me to sign a petition "to Congress," which I'm fairly sure will be ignored if it even gets there.
I've started clicking through to some of the petitions, not to sign them, but as a starting point for research. This morning that meant looking up the bill(s) they're petitioning about, and whether my senators and congressmember had taken a position. Then I can send an email, or pick up the phone (email is easier, even if it isn't a weekend).
The disadvantage is that this takes longer than making a call when someone has provided a script, or emailing via the ACLU website with a pre-drafted message. But it seems worth doing, and there's a chance that I'm calling their attention to something that they weren't already paying attention to.
The specifics of the most recent: the email was from ColorofChange.org, about FBI and police surveillance. It turned out both Massachusetts senators are already cosponsoring the bill, so I just emailed my Congressmember.
Dear Rep. Capuano,
As you know, government surveillance is a civil rights as well as a civil liberties issue, because police and FBI spying is aimed especially at people of color.
In order to restrict surveillance of American citizens, and especially surveillance without a warrant or court oversight, I am urging you to cosponsor HR 4124. I know both Massachusetts senators are cosponsoring the senate counterpart of this bill. Please join them.
I am also asking you to vote against the reauthorization of the misnamed "USA Liberty Act" unless section 702 of that law can be fixed so it does not give the White House, FBI, and NSA broad authorization to spy on Americans.
Thank you.
[the Senate bill is S.1997]
I've started clicking through to some of the petitions, not to sign them, but as a starting point for research. This morning that meant looking up the bill(s) they're petitioning about, and whether my senators and congressmember had taken a position. Then I can send an email, or pick up the phone (email is easier, even if it isn't a weekend).
The disadvantage is that this takes longer than making a call when someone has provided a script, or emailing via the ACLU website with a pre-drafted message. But it seems worth doing, and there's a chance that I'm calling their attention to something that they weren't already paying attention to.
The specifics of the most recent: the email was from ColorofChange.org, about FBI and police surveillance. It turned out both Massachusetts senators are already cosponsoring the bill, so I just emailed my Congressmember.
Dear Rep. Capuano,
As you know, government surveillance is a civil rights as well as a civil liberties issue, because police and FBI spying is aimed especially at people of color.
In order to restrict surveillance of American citizens, and especially surveillance without a warrant or court oversight, I am urging you to cosponsor HR 4124. I know both Massachusetts senators are cosponsoring the senate counterpart of this bill. Please join them.
I am also asking you to vote against the reauthorization of the misnamed "USA Liberty Act" unless section 702 of that law can be fixed so it does not give the White House, FBI, and NSA broad authorization to spy on Americans.
Thank you.
[the Senate bill is S.1997]
