Get FISA Right Asks: Who Is The Appropriate Target on Surveillance Reform?
The activist website Get FISA Right, after working with the ACLU and EFF this month on an unsuccessful campaign to pressure the Senate Judiciary Committee into making significant surveillance reforms, has begun asking whether Congress is the appropriate target of pressure on legislative reforms. Although it may seem like a no-brainer to call Congress when that body is passing legislation, there’s evidence that behind the scenes, the Obama administration has been pulling strings with Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, engineering the introduction and passage of amendments that weaken surveillance reform and make it easier for your government to spy on you.
When a President and his administration are deeply involved in the development and passage of legislation, is the President a more appropriate target for legislative pressure than the Congress itself?
At the risk of spreading oneself too thin, I think both Congress and members of the Executive Branch are appropriate targets. Candidate Obama promised “Change”—we must pressure him to deliver on that, IMHO.
I agree with you, Sally. Pressure both the President AND Congress. People in Congress are, after all, those who cast the votes to get the legislation to the desk of the President. I’m beginning to sense that the problem is that progressive civil liberties organizations are pulling their punches when it comes to Congress and Obama.