It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | A Visit to the Frame FixIt Shop for the FISA Amendments Act |
If you’re a regular Irregular Times reader, I know you know about the FISA Amendments Act and its disturbing provisions to let corporations off the hook for law-breaking, let the government spy on you without a warrant, let the government engage in physical searches without a warrant, sweep all Americans’ communications up in a big fat net, store it, mine it, keep information unconstitutionally obtained and use it anyway, and hit kids in the kneecaps with big lead pipes. OK, so the FISA Amendments Act doesn’t permit that last one, but the rest of it is true. This is a nasty bill that strikes at the heart of the guarantees enshrined in the Constitution, violates the separation of powers, and…
… Stop.
See, that bit about the Constitution, and the separation of powers, and then the bits about arbitrary use of authority and the rule of law that I was about to talk about? Well, it’s all relevant, and it’s all important, and…
… and unfortunately most Americans have demonstrated that they don’t give a crap as long as they get theirs. Their big fat tax cuts. Their big fat televisions. Their tabloid gossip. Their ridged molded potato chip food. The majority of Americans don’t give a crap about legal principles or the arbitrary use of power until it hits them. That’s why a majority of Americans aren’t in the streets. They’ve got theirs, and they think if everybody just shuts up and follows the rules and keeps their heads down it’ll all pass. If they even notice that there’s an “it” to pass, that is.
Yes, they’ve got theirs, and they don’t realize that if bills like the FISA Amendments Act and the Protect America Act and the Military Commissions Act and the Real ID Act and the Patriot Act aren’t turned around, one day they or their kids are going to lose theirs in a material and shocking fashion. Heck, they don’t realize that under these bills they’ve already lost a lot — the immaterial rights that protect everything material they love from being taken away.
So it’s time to take a visit to the Frame FixIt Shop and rework public opposition to the FISA Amendments Act a bit. Here’s a letter to the editor I just sent which reorients discussion away from principles and thinky brain things and down toward something even the most selfish, fearful, obedient American could relate to: those nasty Washington politicians let someone break the rules and take your stuff:
Dear Editor,
On January 24, Senator George Voinovich cast a vote to let our nation’s biggest, most profitable telecommunications corporations take the details of everyday Americans’ most personal and private communications and share them with others, even though doing so is an illegal act. I don’t have powerful friends in Washington to cover for me if I break the law, but the big money telecommunications corporations seem to have a friend in Senator Voinovich. Senator, the privacy of 11 million Ohioans was violated. What possessed you to vote against our rights and for the continuation of corporate crime?
How does that work for you?
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But, but, it’s not on TV, so it doesn’t count! Could you put that in bullet points, please?
Comment by Lizst — 2/4/2008 @ 9:31 pm
It doesn’t.
Just the other day I was telling some guy about telephone companies that couldn’t even be bothered to get a warrant for wiretapping and he said he hoped someone was tapping him in order to catch the bad guys. I fear it’s a common sentiment.
Keep at it, someone needs to come up with the right sound bite.
I wonder how many Americans are actually being wiretapped and how they decide. It’s random, right?
Comment by Iroquois — 2/5/2008 @ 1:54 am
Jim, I think it’s a good letter to the editor. For those people who read newspapers, they’ll be able to understand it. The trouble is with the people who DON’T pay attention to the news. They get their news from political advertisements and movies about the news that come out five years later - but only if the movies have big action sequences.
Those people require a real caveman approach, I think. Ooga booga. Big government now watch you download porn about men wearing horse costumes! Ooga booga. Them blackmail you. Ooga booga. Go Giants! Make fire!
No, see, I still couldn’t make it simple enough.
Comment by J. Clifford — 2/5/2008 @ 7:48 am
Maybe the way to get the point across is to buy online ads saying, “The government is watching you read this.”
Comment by John_Stracke — 2/6/2008 @ 11:09 am
Sounds good John. I think you could set it up through google to have the ads appear on all kinds of different sites fairly easily. Have some kind of trusted account set up for people to make small donations to and keep the ads running.
Comment by hendrixbot — 2/6/2008 @ 1:09 pm
I like that John.
Unfortunately Jim has written the thing in his academic style, which I cannot even read without falling asleep. I have tried to read it too, several times, but I can’t tell you what it says.
Comment by Iroquois — 2/6/2008 @ 4:05 pm