Positive Universe Abstracts

PATRIOT ACT ALERT Vote NO to Cloture Vote Now! (m)

Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have offered amendments (bordc.org/threats/legislation/amend-s2271.php) that would substantively improve the PATRIOT Act, but ONLY IF they are allowed to come to a vote.

(cloture vote scheduled February 28 at 2:30 p.m. EST) Please Vote Against Cloture because we need more changes are made to protect civil liberties. Remind Senators that nearly 400 communities and eight states, including California, with a combined population of nearly 85 million people (one in three U.S. residents!) have passed resolutions calling on Congress to change the PATRIOT Act to protect our civil liberties. Urge Senators to support votes in favor of amendments proposed by Senators Feingold and Senator Leahy that would address some of your concerns.

Click here for talking points and phone numbers: www.bordc.org AND/OR

Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 (24 hours), and ask the operator to connect you to a Senator.

Sometimes it’s helpful and effective to simply call a Senator’s office outside your state to offer helpful information as a US citizen or resident. If you immediately state that they don’t need to send you a letter there is often a freedom for the contact/receptionist to listen to your suggestions if offered in a friendly manner that would point out the value for this particular Senator, state–bipartisan points. (I try to follow the Nonviolent Communication principles encouraged by Marshall Rosenberg)

My own possible short list of contacts for this vote–sometimes leaders in their party and sometimes willing to work on issues of such bipartisan import for starters (let us know if you have other Senators in mind who may be on the fence and/or who are sometimes willing to work with bipartisan issues).

Please don’t give up on your own state senators of course, ever. We have seen some dramatic willingness of late for legislators to listen and even to speak up on bipartisan issues where they have not before:

Possible Senators to Contact (but there are many more) Washington, D.C. - Senators Santorum (R-PA), McCain (R-AZ), Lott (R-TN), Kyl (R-AZ), Vitter (R-LA), Lieberman (D-CT), Obama (D-IL), Isakson (R-GA), Dodd (D-CT), and Collins (R-ME)

For more background and to receive alerts:

www.bordc.org/

Also for frequent updates:

blogs.positiveuniverse.com/

www.feingold.senate.gov go right column to Feingold on Patriot Act and check-out: Listen/Read/Read and also archives for his long-standing work since he was lone vote against the original. This issue is being ignored/missed by most everyone but then we could be stuck with 7 years of this Act with it very difficult if not impossible to get another amendment after it’s voted permanent in war-time.

C-Span or C-Span2 should be covering this at least beg. at 2 pm today and much of rest of month until final vote on March 1st (IF we keep the vote open until then.)

Let me know if you ever want to be on my activist list or to give me your updates on Rights Legislation–you may already know a whole lot more than me! Let me know a little about yourself first as I delete anything that looks like spam or an unknown.

Connie L. Nash newlease7@yahoo.com

This entry was posted on Monday, February 27th, 2006 at 7:54 am and is filed under Action Alerts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.