Californians: Ashamed of Senator Feinstein's lies on surveillance? Join Us

by zmanian • 13 years ago

211 61 13 years ago

belluchan3• 13 years ago

Feinstein beyond reproach. She's probably too old to run again and she just won her election. She's a lame duck with a ton of power. She can take the flak I think with no repercussions.

I also don't think she's lied. She's been open about her position. I don't agree with it, but I don't think she's ever misrepresented herself.

zmanian8• 13 years ago

Feinstein's lies to the public come in the form of her "reform" bill which purports to prohibit mass surveillance but actually codifies it into law.

https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?a...

She has also adopted the NSA's deceptive language that collection is not surveillance when she says the NSA is not spying on Americans.

salient• 13 years ago

Recalling her is the only option if she doesn't resign from the position of Chief of Senate Intelligence. She's way too dangerous in that position to be left there. No real reform of the NSA will happen with her there. I still remember how disgusted I was with her when she kept asking everyone to just end it with the debate already and just extend FISA Amendments Act until 2017, last year.

belluchan3• 13 years ago

A recall will never happen. California is too big of a state, which would make a recall effort too expensive to achieve even a respectable failure, and most people don't care two shits about the NSA. If people are unhappy in California it's the governor who gets recalled, not a senator.

whyenot• 13 years ago

She can not be recalled.

The removal of U.S. Representatives or U.S. Senators is governed by the United States Constitution, Article 1, Sec. 5 (2), which states "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member." The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States are removed through the process of "impeachment" which is governed by the United States Constitution.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/recalls/recall.pdf

dragonwriter4• 13 years ago

Recalling her is the only option

To recall a US Senator, first you have to pass an amendment to the US Constitution to make that possible.

So, its not really an option.

davidgerard• 13 years ago

Feinstein has been like this forever, but she's in a seat where the electorate would rather vote for a Democrat that eats babies over a moderate Republican.

belluchan3• 13 years ago

California elects republicans statewide all the time. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pete Wilson, a Senator can win too. Not that I would want them to.

wavefunction• 13 years ago

There are other Democrats out there. She has seniority in the Senate though, which is unfortunately valuable to far too many Californians.

shadowflit• 13 years ago

I just moved to CA for the last election, and I voted for her. This was after already sending her mail saying she was doing a bad job. But as much as I didn't want to vote for her, the opponent did not look like a "moderate Republican." Stood for a ton of things I disagreed with. Maybe it's just party lines, but then they should have strayed from those lines if they wanted broader support to capitalize on anti-Feinstein.

dragonwriter4• 13 years ago

Feinstein has been like this forever, but she's in a seat where the electorate would rather vote for a Democrat that eats babies over a moderate Republican.

Like all Senators, she's elected by the State as a whole; there hasn't been anything like a "moderate Republican" run against Feinstein since she was elected.

andyl• 13 years ago

Feinstein consistently opposes the interests of her own Tech industry. She's gotta go.

mikeyouse• 13 years ago

I'm as unhappy as the next person with regard to Feinstein's track record, but to say she's opposing the interests of her own industry is just Silicon Valley bias. She's a US Senator, not a congresswoman from Palo Alto.

Yes, the tech sector is very large in California but they've largely been apolitical in the past. There are two massive industries who lavish politicians with donations and who Feinstein is representing just fine:

Military and Entertainment.

How many defense contractors from the top-100 list[1] are based in California? How about the world's largest entertainment companies (who would profit immensely from SOPA / PIPA)?

Ignoring these political realities is unhelpful.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_100_Contractors_of_the_U.S....

gbhn• 13 years ago

I didn't read OP's comment as saying Feinstein wasn't serving any industry's interests -- but that she was being actively and passively hostile to the tech sector which comprises a significant part of her constituency.

I'm happy to say I've voted for her opponent in every election where the option was available to me. I suggest everyone living in California do the same, barring her running against a truly ghastly opponent. (But isn't that always the issue...)

rhizome6• 13 years ago

Check out the business of her husband before deciding what "her" industry is.

angryasian2• 13 years ago

Her and Boxer are terrible senators, just their non incumbents have always been worse. The entire two party system has been failing as they all serve the same interests

AnthonyMouse• 13 years ago

It's California. It's a strong blue state. What you need is a primary challenge.

timw6n• 13 years ago

The fact that there's an "Is this safe" link next to the button for signing the petition is itself a telling indicator of the chilling effects of this sort of surveillance.

A couple of years ago people wouldn't even have imagined the possibility that there'd be consequences from this sort of very low-level, very legitimate, democratic participation.

rayiner2• 13 years ago

The organization opposing surveillance is the one putting the button there. Its pure propaganda on their part.

TelmoMenezes• 13 years ago

Honestly, if you had to bet, would you bet for or against the following hypothesis?

hypothesis: A significant amount of people nowadays think twice before writing or voting on something that could be interpreted as critical of government surveillance. They fear they will be included in some list and that this may have future negative consequences.

ScottBurson• 13 years ago

Under Recent Signatures as it is at this moment, I count 29 signatures with names and 24 anonymous or redacted. Looks like quite a few people have concerns about signing the petition and are grateful for the anonymous/redacted options.

That doesn't necessarily mean those concerns are valid, of course, but it suggests that the organization has a good read on people's feelings at the moment.

zmanian8• 13 years ago

Anyone involved in activism against the national security state needs to do their best to protect their comrades against threat living on the Internet Backbone.

hooande• 13 years ago

There will be absolutely no consequences.

It can be said unequivocally that the US government will not punish people for signing an online petition. Believe it or not, members of government like to see people getting involved in the political process. Even if said people are actively protesting against the current administration's policies. As they say, negative attention is better than no attention at all.

We live in a culture of political apathy. Most people understand government in terms of caricatures only. Any issue that grabs people's attention can lead to more involvement, which is generally good for everyone. Many of today's political figures, including Barack Obama, John Kerry and Hiliary Clinton got their start by protesting and signing petitions.

The biggest outcome from this NSA kerfluffle might be a new generation with a passion for politics. This could be the Vietnam of our time.

HelloMcFly• 13 years ago

Have you read the accounts of people in Wisconsin having their signature on the "Recall Walker" petition begin retaliated against by state officials? This is the most well-known case, but not the only one.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/scott-walker-with...

prolways• 13 years ago

Is anyone weighing in on this in touch woth how california actually votes? It doesn't matter how bad DFi actuallu is, our party voters are too busy protecting you from republicans. i didn't hear one reason in favor of hr last term, the only justification for voting i got was "fioria is terrifying"

jedbrown• 13 years ago

When you open this page with NoScript, all the alerts are shown.

* Thanks for Signing We've sent you an email. Please check your inbox to complete the process.

* We've already got a signature for your email. Thanks

* You appear to be overloading our servers. Please stop.

* Something went wrong. Let us know on Github

zmanian8• 13 years ago

We are serving all of our javascript over SSL. We think think that should protect our users against malicious attacks if they are using TOR to access our site for instance.

We could pretty easily provide a fallback HTML form for sign up. I'll try to get that up and running soon.

rosser• 13 years ago

If you really want to get Feinstein's attention, an internet petition, even an incredibly well-written one like TFA, isn't likely to do much. You need to pick up the phone and interact with a human being in her office, making sure that person understands the importance of this issue to you, one of her constituents.

If her staffers start being effectively being DDoSed from doing their jobs by phone calls about NSA surveillance, she will hear about it.

Source: my cousin and his wife were both Senate staffers for a number of years.

rhizome6• 13 years ago

My belief is that silly internet petitions such as this are designed to steer people away from more effective techniques.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

Not only that, but they also give people the impression that they did something useful and meaningful. So they are doubly dangerous.

zmanian8• 13 years ago

We've evaluated our options for influencing Feinstein's office directly and there is no precedent for a citizen movement causing the Senator to change a publically announced position.

We are trying to adopt a strategy more like the 2nd Amendment groups to discredit and delegitimize.

rhizome6• 13 years ago

Are you saying that internet petitions have been effective for specific 2nd Amendment issues? Cite?

wdewind• 13 years ago

Is there any precedent for online petitions doing anything? Ever? Would be happily surprised to learn of something but to my knowledge they have never done anything.

refurb• 13 years ago

2nd amendment groups like the NRA use the direct method, not petitions. They send out pre-written postcards for the member to fill out and send in. They also send out contact information for all the member gov't representatives, phone numbers included, and tell them to call.

The grandparent is right. Give people the number to Feinstein's office and tell them to call and say:

1. I live in Feinstein's district

2. I oppose X

3. If Feinstein votes for X, I will vote against her next election.

The call can take less than 1 minute, but her staff will record the comments and present them to Diane.

testrun• 13 years ago

I do not agree. The SOPA petition worked. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sopa-petition...)

otterley• 13 years ago

I suspect the SOPA petition alone was less effective than Google asking users to phone their Congressperson on every single search result page.

lambdasquirrel• 13 years ago

So a logistics question then. How many staffers are there for a typical Senator's office?

patrickg_zill• 13 years ago

Feinstein's husband: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Blum

All the controversies about self-dealing must just be coincidence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Blum#Controversy

zmanian8• 13 years ago

Get involved: We organize primarily through our mailing list. http://restorethefourthsf.com/mailinglist/ & Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/RestoretheFourthSF/

discardorama2• 13 years ago

The ONLY way that you can have an impact is by (1) raising money (I'm talking $1000/person), and (2) donating a significant amount of time to working for their challenger.

Go after some of the most ardent supporters of NSA and get them defeated. Once you make an example of a few such politicians, the rest will fall in line. That's what the NRA does, and it works swimmingly for them.

joyeuse6701• 13 years ago

pretty sure her office is around Santa Monica blvd. and Sepulveda IIRC, should anyone want to do protest more physically.

naaaaak• 13 years ago

Campaigns won't work, be it email or phone. A lot of Californians (and US citizens in general) have been trained to automatically vote for someone with a D (or R) next to the person's name. They've also been trained to apologize for their politicians, buy into whatever they say, and ignore serious issues. Skepticism and criticism only apply to people from the other side, and even then, it's only the easily marketable rhetoric people will repeat.

In California, Feinstein will be re-elected into her grave because of that D next to her name. She could support almost everything George W Bush stood for, just say otherwise, and that D will keep her in office. Want proof? Look at Obama.

jmspring• 13 years ago

Lies on surveillance is one if many issues Senator Feinstein is an embarrassment to me. It started with her own self serving nature even as mayor of San Francisco.

Google her stance on gun ownership and the steps she took for her own private interests.

MRSallee• 13 years ago

Ashamed? No. Her actions are no reflection of my own character or behavior. I've never voted for her. Ashamed is not the right word.

Californians: Ashamed of Senator Feinstein's lies on surveillance? Join Us

Related Stories