I wonder how 9/11 faired at Mr Obamas Change.org

[Disco_Destroyer]

Top ten winners:-

www.change.org/ideas

[Disco_Destroyer]

The most important looking one and please draw your attension to the Comments lol

Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties
Update, January 12: please check out Steve Elliot's Get FISA Right: Last Chance To Vote Against Domestic Spying and consider voting for it on digg

FISA and the PATRIOT Act strike at the core of our Fourth and First Amendment Rights and institutionalize a surveillance society -- and FISA's telecom immunity clause mocks the rule of law by not holding telecom companies accountable for any illegal actions. Beginning the new Administration and Congress by focusing on these issues sends one of the clearest signals possible that that the new government is committed to ending the abuses of the last eight years and restoring our civil liberties.

if you're voting for this idea, please double-check to make sure that the button in the top left has turned from blue to brown so you know your vote has been counted. If not, please see the instructions on How to vote for our Idea for Change. Thanks!

In the first 100 days of the Administration, we ask that President Obama

- stay immunity lawsuits until after the Inspectors' General report in July (EFF's What Obama Can and Should do to Stop Telecom Immunity discusses this)

- comply with FISA and other legislation (including the warrant requirements) and clarify that he will not assert "Article II" power

- defer bulk surveillance of Americans, even though it has been authorized by the FISA Amendment Act

We also ask the new Administraiton and Congress to revisit last summer's flawed FAA during the debate about whether to renew sections 206 and 215 of the PATRIOT Act -- and to sunset these clauses as well as repeal the PATRIOT Act as a whole.

Please see my blog post the Turning the Page on FISA and the About us page on the Get FISA Right wiki for more.



Link



- Jon Pincus (strategist, activist, writer)

Suggestions
We have opened discussion for how to most effectively turn each idea into a successful national campaign, and would love your suggestions on how to bring about this Idea for Change.

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[Disco_Destroyer]

Looks like the only thing this is about is overturning granted immunity of Telecom firms. Small step I guess but the upside people are at least pushing

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/what-obama-can-and-should-do-stop -telecom-immunity

[Disco_Destroyer]

Looks like this top ten is set to fail

Obama to Defend Telco Spy Immunity
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/obama-to-fight.html
David Kravets | Wired Blog | January 15, 2009

The incoming Obama administration will vigorously defend congressional legislation immunizing U.S. telecommunication companies from lawsuits about their participation in the Bush administration's domestic spy program.

That was the assessment Thursday by Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for attorney general, who made the statement during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. A court challenge questioning the legality of the legislation is pending in U.S. District Court in San Francisco -- where the judge in the case wanted to know what the Obama administration's position was.

"The duty of the Justice Department is to defend statutes that have been passed by Congress," Holder told Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah), who asked whether the Obama administration would continue the legal fight to uphold the legislation that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to overturn.

"Unless there are compelling reasons, I don't think we would reverse course," Holder added.

At a San Francisco hearing in EFF's case last month, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker wondered aloud whether the incoming Obama administration would continue to defend the legislation, which passed in July. Obama opposed immunity but voted for it because it was included in a new spy bill that gave the Bush administration broad warrantless-surveillance powers.

"We are going to have a new attorney general," Walker said from the bench, wondering whether he should delay a decision, pending guidance from Obama. "Why shouldn't the court wait to see what the new attorney general will do?"

The EFF is also accusing the nation's telecoms of funneling Americans' electronic communications to the Bush administration without warrants in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Holder's comments came the same day a secret federal appeals court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, released a declassified opinion (.pdf) approving 2007 legislation that gave the government broad powers to eavesdrop on international communications — even those in the United States — without warrants.

The court, hearing a challenge to the Protect America Act from a telecommunications company it did not name, said the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was not breached because the right to be free from unreasonable searches did not apply to foreign intelligence gathering.

The August 2007 Protect America Act expired six months after its passage and was revived as part of the immunity legislation Holder addressed Thursday. The secret court's opinion did not address the Bush administration's once-secret eavesdropping program — which was not authorized by Congress — initiated in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks.

The Justice Department lauded the opinion, which was rendered in August but just released Thursday after it was declassified. "The Court of Review upheld the lawfulness of the directives, concluding that the surveillance at issue fell within the foreign-intelligence exception to the warrant requirement and was otherwise reasonable under the Fourth Amendment," the department said.

The immunity legislation at issue was crafted after Walker had refused to dismiss the lawsuit EFF brought in 2006 against AT&T, accusing the telco of violating its customers' civil liberties. At the time, Walker's initial decision allowing the case to go forward was idling on appeal before the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — which dismissed the case as moot after President Bush signed the immunity bill.

All of the nation's leading telecommunication companies have been added to the litigation — the merits of which have never been decided.

The Bush administration had argued that the original case should be dismissed on the grounds that it threatened to expose government secrets, a legal privilege judges routinely rubber-stamp. The EFF, in a bid to revive the lawsuit, challenged the immunity legislation on the grounds that Congress was prohibited from legalizing what the EFF termed was unconstitutional activity by the telecommunication companies.

Walker's decision on the immunity legislation is pending.