In the early afternoon two weeks ago today, Mardi, a Barack Obama supporter logged into the Obama campaign's social networking application and created the group "Senator Obama - Please Vote against FISA" to protest Obama's stance on the FISA bill that was under consideration in Congress. She had no idea that she would become the founder of a movement. By that evening, Mardi's group had 300 members. In one week, the group boasted more than 17,000 members, the largest group on the Obama website. Today, the day of the Senate vote on the bill, the group has nearly 24,000 members and is still growing.
The last two weeks have been a whirlwind for members and especially the people who volunteered to handle administrative and leadership tasks, all of whom were strangers to one another before the group's creation. Almost immediately, Mardi realized she would not be able to keep up with the group's expanding administrative tasks. She recruited additional administrators from within the group. Perfect strangers began coordinating a campaign for thousands of people to protest the FISA bill.
Once the group reached several thousand members, it was generating hundreds of emails every day. By the end of the first week, email had exploded, creating chaos. I joined the group at the one week mark and was bombarded for hours, mostly by anti-Obama emails. I wrote this opinion piece in response, making my case that the group needed to repurpose to defeat FISA rather than bashing our presidential nominee.
In fact, those who wanted to withdraw support for Obama turned out to be an extremely small (but vocal) minority within the group. The group, however, still struggled to develop its position, goals, and course of actions.
Because of the incredible demands on the volunteer leadership, the administrators and moderators formed a parallel email group, which now includes 36 very active members. Email moderators were organized in round-the-clock shifts for the main group to help members with technical issues and keep the list (somewhat) sane. Even so, the email group still generates several hundred emails every day.
The group leaders, all volunteers, come from all walks of life and have varied backgrounds in political activism. Two have professional community organizing experience. One has worked in public relations. Several are social science researchers. A handful are techies. Members of the leadership group range from political novices to long-time political activists. In addition to communicating through the original extended "Vote Against FISA" and leadership email groups, the group leaders also have almost-daily conference calls, a chat server that is active nearly 24 hours a day, a wiki for information sharing, Google docs to collaborate, and more. The group is recruiting new members every day through a Twitter, Facebook and other networking tools.
One of the group leaders reflects on techPresident that the group has been successful largely because the transaction costs of organizing on the web have been lowered by the many open source and free tools available for collaboration and communication.
In fact, as was reported widely, the group was so successful that it drew a direct response from Obama. No other presidential candidate has responded to a group of protest by supporters in such a way. Although the group was disappointed that Obama did not change his stance on the FISA bill, the vast majority of group members were astounded and pleased that Obama chose to open a dialog with them. Obama posted his response to the group on the Obama campaign blog and assigned three high-level policy staffers available to answer questions, live on the blog, for nearly two hours.
The group quickly drafted their own response to Obama and posted it on several blogs and delivered it to the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago and to the Obama senate office in D.C.
Today, the Senate voted to pass the FISA bill, including Title II, which grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally handed over private customer data to the Bush administration without the warrants required by law.
The Vote Against FISA group has vowed to continue fighting for reform on the matter. The group completed an open letter to Senator Obama by the time the vote was wrapped up in the Senate and is demanding accountability (after all, Obama continues to say that he wants his supporters to hold him accountable) if and when Obama moves into the White House. The open letter expresses continued support for Obama's presidential candidacy and asks him to go further in his promise to the American people:
Senator Obama, you told us last Thursday that you would have your "Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and ... make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future." You need to go further. When you are president, use your powers to expose the truth. A full investigation of Bush's so-called "terrorist surveillance program" needs to be conducted by your administration, not just the Bush administration. Legal opinions that try to justify spying on the phone calls and emails of Americans without warrants need to be released so they can be publically debated and discredited. Finally, you need to revisit this flawed bill as president. It is anything but a compromise. As Republican Senator Kit Bond said, "the White House got a better deal than they even had hoped to get."
Members of the group are vowing not just to fight on, but to organize in a way that was impossible to do during the last frenzied two weeks. Members are retooling, creating a central website with more robust tools so that the large number of members can better communicate without hundreds of emails clogging their inboxes.
Obama asked his supporters to get involved in the issues, to hold politicians accountable, and to work for the changes they want to see. This group, which organized around the FISA bill, may be only the first instance of the kind of activism and political participation that Obama has asked us to envision -- at least I hope so.
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Guess they really don't want him to win the election. How sad.
Reality is compromising. Is Obama flipflopping as charged?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20080711/cm_rcp/whats_wrong_with_senator_obama
Great analysis, Dawn. The next six months will tell the full tale of FISA, by which time we will have a new leader (O, of course). Then the game will really get interesting.
From the Farther Outpost, Tucson -- also in McCain's home state -- where McCain has already lost the race.
It's an evolving chess game in a intricate woven web by Bush corrupted system. It is not a battle that can be fought between now and the election.
He could have easily, chosen the no on that bill, just to be politically correct. But he said YES! Giving to McCain, desperately seeking for something to hammer him with, some more munitions.
He will do the right thing. Here are few reasons why.
There is a large group of citizen, which have already initiate a contact with Obama, ready to remind him about his accountability to the American people. This guys are seriously dedicated.
He needs to have his people in place, attorney general extension of his policy, to go directly in the center of that "intricate political spy-web". We know by now that the bush government have their people placed in. He knows that it will be a Don Quixote fight...
People like Caroline Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, are not the kind of characters who put their trust in someone, lacking principals, so lightly. Therefore his "YES" to the FISA bill have a deeper meaning than the obvious "media-tized" one, called drift in the center or flip flopping dance.
You can't play politics with the life of the American people. American souls are dieing for our safety. So right here in the comfort of the homeland, we can support the weight of some miner discomfort.
The chess game is not over yet. Are you feeling me?
1) Terrorists attack US, US goes into highly defensive mode
2) Bipartisan panel investigates and determines faults with collecting intelligence are key area for US to fix to prevent further attacks
3) Government (run by our elected officials) approaches telcos and asks them, because they are in a unique position to help given their networks, to assist in war against terrorists
4) Telcos, with nothing to gain and a high financial and PR risk to their firms, agree to help US
5) Trial lawyers see enormous payday opportunity and line up to sue telcos for their cooperation, left-wingers (moveon, soros, huffpost, aclu and other crowds) jump on bandwagon in a teeth-gnashing fury
There is a legitimate stance to make against the investigative powers provided by the FISA bill if you prefer a balance more towards freedom than security. However, it isn't logical or fair to go after the teclos for their agreement to help the government when requested. If you are unhappy with that work, go after your elected officials who are ultimately responsible for the activity. The senior members of the house and senate intelligence committees were in one the deal - they should be held accountable, not telcos
What do you mean, telecoms had nothing to gain? They were paid for their illegal services.
If the NSA had approached them legally (with FISA warrants), they would have had to comply - no immunity needed. Of course, the NSA didn't get warrants because they wouldn't have received them for their wholesale, suck-it-all-up wiretaps. So the companies went along with the illegal orders for years, because wholesale copying of entire networks to NSA servers yielded more money than targeted wiretaps woud have. And when they got busted, they whined to Congress and received immunity. That's FAIR?
You'll be glad to know the new FISA bill expressedly requires telecoms to get paid: "The government shall compensate, at the prevailing rate, an electronic communication service provider for providing information, facilities, or assistance."
Spying is now officially part of the telecom bottom line. The more they wiretap, the better for business. But that's only FAIR, right?
One of the six telcos refused to do the government's illegal wiretapping on advice of counsel. Why? Because it's illegal!
The other five companies have legal counsel. Do you think their attorneys advised them that surveiling US citizens without warrants is legal?
The 72-hour timeframe allotted by the original FISA gives plenty of time to GET THE WARRANT if there is probable cause.
Therein lies the crux of the matter: PROBABLE CAUSE. There cannot be probable cause to eavesdrop on all of us!
The administration began it's wiretapping policy BEFORE 9/11 around April '01 I recall.
Well, we see how well the wire-tapping worked, huh? 9/11 happened anyway.
So, wire-tapping really works! Sure.
Most people in that group do not understand FISA or care about it. They are Rush Limabaugh Chaos operators. Activists who really care about FISA would write to their own Senators to impact their vote. They used the situation to intimidate Obama supporters on the site and to attach negative labels to him. They created many short uninteresting posts which offered no insight into the issue.
There are exceptions to this rule, but you can easily check it for yourselves. Obama did today what he promised to do and did not change his mind. I trust entirely his choices. You will see it all made sense.
Obama's vote counts as ONE. Have you pestered your own senators to vote as you believe they should? Did you do you job?! Or you were wasting time to shame Obama on his site! So perhaps YOU are responsible for the outcome! Perhaps you yourself dumped your Constitution for the pleasure of insulting the Democratic candidate on his own site.
see:
HOW SEN. OBAMA DID VOTE IN THE SENATE TODAY ON FISA (5 VOTES) AND HOW MCCAIN DID NOT (SINCE HE WAS THE ONLY SENATOR ABSENT)
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/fib/gGxfN2
The FISA thing consists of several parts. Each required a separate vote. Obama did what he promised to do. He cast three votes against the immunity! McCain caved in BY ABSENTIA! Get your facts straight before you further attack Senator Obama.
Ignorance is really great. Wonderful how little you know about the moderators of the group.
Well, McCain is getting a free ride on his absence for the vote. Not a stinking word. That is how he managed to side-step the issue. At least Obama voted.
Obama is NOT going to be able to please all of his supporters 100% of the time. We need to back off and let him do his job. As one of his campaign staff said, us bloggers do not know the intricacies of the bill. I am sure there is something in there that allows Obama to do the right thing once he gets in office.
Relax, folks. Obama knows what he is doing.
That does mean that I think we should not hold him accountable. We certainly should. But we also need to give him some breathing room. It isn't bad enough that he has Hill's rogue supporters and the GOP breathing down his neck, he does not need his own supporters doing likewise.
Yes, I contacted both of my Senators.
I agree with you Westerner - they should all have been contacting their OWN senators!
GREAT ARTICLE, Dawn!!!
Did anybody take the time to check many of those so-called O supporter's profiles here at HuffPo who participated in this!? I would venture to say that many were never for O in the first place. And, as you say still sore loosers/covert actors attempting to syphone off votes from O!
It is interesting to note that many obviously didn't even bother to comprehensively read the amended bill nor have they bothered to know how O voted .... and obviously Mc's absence doesn't matter either!!
FiSA only grants immunity on civil law suits, not on criminal law suits.
And as we should know, the weight of the evidence presented in civil court is the preponderance of the evidence as opposed to criminal court's evidence beyond a shadow of doubt!! In other words, if there's the slighest sniff that a rat entered, Telecoms may be found guilty in civil courts. Remember OJ!??
Couple that with the five year statute of limitations on criminal suits as per federal law...
and what did you learn that you didn't learn from the criminal case.and he still hasn't paid up.
The dems want to keep the spying so they can spy on the repugs like they spied on them. If the repugs had a brain bigger that their greed, they would see this. The telecoms will be dolling out the cash to the dems soon, if not already.
A of bunch brave activists who oppose FISA got a personal letter from Obama -- and then he betrayed everyone by voting YES. Now Obama hopes to appease activists by opening a dialog with them. Well, isn't that special!
I"m extremely angry over what happened. because I expected Obama to do the right thing. I"m sick and tired of politicians that talk to us like we are children, and then stab us in the back when it"s time to vote. Oh sure, Obama is now saying that even though he voted for that turkey he will make it better once he is president. What a bunch of BS!
Obama'sflip flop is the worst kind because he voted to protect greedy corporatists who want to force us into a totalitarian police state where telcoms and the feds can spy on us with impunity. Obama showed himself to be just another two-faced politician who pretends to be a man of the people.
If this betrayal is any indication of how he will run our government, Iran better not talk to him. After a nice talk with Iran"s leaders he will "bomb! bomb! bomb!".
Ooops! Sorry that's McCain's line.
McCain shouldn"t be excused for his cowardly non-vote. He is a Senator from Arizona that is being paid lots of money to do nothing.
So, we have two candidates for president -- one a two faced liar, and the other a weasel and a coward. What a sad country this has turned into!
"you need to revisit this flawed bill as president." ???
He can't do that. Congress makes laws that even the president must follow.
I think the group fails to recognize that it's over and we lost.
In politics, nothing is ever over.
Regrettably immediately after Evita's "concession" speech a number of her supporters took up her call to make their voices heard by infiltrating & disrupting Obama groups. We could tell they were Clintonistas because any suggestion that the former Walmart board member was not vastly superior to Obama was greeted w/ vicious personal attacks.
This group has no understanding of the FISA compromise. It is ironic that hillaryclinton.com had a number of authorized groups dedicated to racist attacks on Obama. Now these ignorant fools have infiltrated our campaign.
How very Clintonesque. To the person or persons who can tell me why other than his openness to varying viewpoints Obama allows this a free cast album of Evita or just go to hillaryclinton.com & download her photo album. Same thing.
I don't know that I would use the word "infiltrated" so loosely. However, some of Hill's supporters have united with the Obama camp. Where the trouble lies is that they think they can come over to O's camp and bully O and his supporters around.
They need to unite - not come in and attempt to divide within the camp. They do not understand the word "compromise" because Hill did not compromise. They learned from their candidate.
They remind me of that small group of Mother's whose children are new to the school. But these Mother's join the PTA and start demanding things, eventually weaseling her way into the top post and then start making demands of the Principal. Believe you me, I work at a school district and I have seen this time and time again. If the Principal does not meet their demands, they make so much trouble through the Superintendent's office that the Super tells the Principal to give in to the parent's demands.
Sorry, Hill supporters, but you have joined the camp. Sit down and behave. You may certainly voice your concerns. But do not try to take over.
You are the reason 9 million Hillary supporters aren't supporting Obama.
"9 million supporters"? Where are they now? Get them to donate her three bucks each to clear her debt right now.
"Now these ignorant fools have infiltrated our campaign."
It's called "Party Unity".
Just under a third of the Senate, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, supported an amendment proposed by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., that would have stripped immunity from the bill.
It was defeated on a 32-66 vote. Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain did not vote.
A "NO" vote would have restored the OLD FISA BILL wherein wiretaps are under the authority of the attorney general and Bush keeps on snooping on any one he likes because the atttorney general is his guy.
The REFORM FISA BILL, that Senator Obama voted YES for puts the authority for wire taps BACK INTO THE HANDS OF THE FISA COURT and thus better protects the American people.
It was a tough decision, but Senator Obama has the courage to stand up and do what works best for the American people.
I applaud him and he has my total support..
Where did you get this information? That the Old, or original FISA - along with over fifty revisions since 1978 - puts wiretap authority in the hands of the AG?
That's simply untrue. To the nth degree. The FISA law created a FISA Court that was the exclusive determiner of warrants. Bush, unfortunately, decided to ignore the FISA law and FISA courts...HE was the one who put the authority in the A.G.'s hands.
Please, provide a link to the "old" FISA - the one on the books up unti yesterday - that gives authority to the A.G. Or provide a link from a constitutional expert/lawyer who makes such an analysis.
Thanks.
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Posted July 9, 2008 | 06:48 AM (EST)