We are a proud group of Obama supporters who believe in his call for hope and a new kind of politics. We ask President Obama and the new Congress to reject the politics of fear on national security, and work to get FISA right.

Congratulations, President Obama. Please Get FISA Right.

Get FISA right is delighted to announce that our new video/cable TV ad, Congratulations, President Obama. Please get FISA right, premiers January 20, Inauguration Day, in Washington DC, on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, and the Comedy Channel. See the media release and blog post for more!

During the past 8 years, the Bush administration listened to Americans' phone calls and read their emails without a warrant. On July 9, 2008, the Senate passed a bill to amend FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to further expand the government's warrantless wiretapping powers. The Senate also mocked the rule of law and gave telecom companies immunity for any illegal actions they may have taken without having to appear in court. We lost that round. But it's not over: both the ACLU and EFF filed suit, and we're gearing up for another battle in 2009. Get FISA Right will continue to work with other groups fighting for our civil liberties on the web and on the streets. If you want to help shape our direction, please join the discussions about what next. Please also join us on my.barackobama.com, Facebook, MySpace, our Google discussion group, and our blog ... here are the latest posts:

Congratulations, Get FISA Right on our #5 finish in "Ideas for Change in America"!

With a late rush, Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties squeaked into the #5 position in the change.org’s Ideas for Change in America competition with 12285 votes!
Alas, even though our other endorsement Bob Fertik’s Appoint a Special Prosecutor for the Crimes of the Bush Administration picked up over 500 votes this morning, it appears to have fallen heartbreaking short by just 19 votes. Still, overall, wow, what a huge success for Get FISA Right — and civil liberties!
More in Time to celebrate! (and Ideas for Changeupdate) on our blog and Thomas Nephew's We’re Number 5! We’re Number 5! on newsrackblog.com.


Our priorities for 2009

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 the Liberty and Security coalition's Recommendations for the Next Administration and Congress, EFF’s What Obama Can and Should do to Stop Telecom Immunity, ACLU's transition plan, and CDT's Reform of the National Security Surveillance Laws and Procedures all have more information.

On January 13-14, we voted overwhelmingly to endorse a special prosecutor. As Sarah G said in the voting thread,

We must defend the Constitution; whereas we must move forward, we cannot allow the Bush-administration precedents to stand. Nixon’s misconduct led to the passage of FISA; current attempts to short-circuit the Constitution must be followed up similarly.

How we started:

The my.barackobama.com group : "Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right was started by Mardi on June 26 2008 and quickly rose to the #1 group on MyBO, with over 23,000 members in its first two weeks.

Read Mardi's original post: here:

During the Democratic primary for President of the United States, the activist base rallied behind the Constitution and the efforts of Senators Chris Dodd and Russell Feingold to deny immunity for telecommunications companies that helped the Bush Administration spy on American citizens without a court order.

Senator Obama pledged to "support a filibuster" of ANY bill that contained retroactive immunity. Now that he has won our votes in the primary, he has decided to vote in favor of retroactive immunity for the telecoms.

That's the impetus for the creation of this MyBo group. In a Rolling Stone interview Obama says, "The [internet] gives young people the opportunity to hold me accountable when I'm not following through on promises that I've made."

He has my vote, he has my voice, and he'll have my contribution ... but please, Senator Obama, stay true to the words you first spoke when courting my vote in a Democratic primary -- a vote I gave to you.

Please see the group's community blog for personal statements from many of the members describing why we feel so strongly.


We quickly grew to be the largest group on my.barackobama.com, and have gotten mainstream media attention from the likes of CNN, in TIME Magazine, the New York Times, the LA Times, and the Chicago Tribune. We've been featured in blogs like techPresident, Wired's Threat Level, the Washington Post's Clickocracy, the New York Times' The Caucus, OpenLeft, The New Right, Slashdot, ars technica and apophenia.