Reps. John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler, and Bobby Scott have introduced two important bills directly engaging Patriot Act and FISA reform (HR 3845 and 3846). This page will be used to aggregate resources for bloggers to cover news and action campaigns.

Tweetchat description

Blogger coverage suggestions

While following the webcast of the much anticipated markup of H.R. 3845, the “USA PATRIOT Amendments Act of 2009, we will be holding a live “tweetchat” in our Patriot Act Action Hub to aggregate any coverage and to facilitate acting upon what happens. During this tweetchat, you will find the latest on what is going on at the hearing as well as what others are saying about it on twitter (everything tweeted to #patriotact will show up in the chat). However, we encourage those on twitter and not on it alike to comment directly into the chat room, as our goal is to foster as much conversation and collective action in response as we can. No matter what happens tomorrow, we want to help spur “flash actions” via Twitter and other new media services in response.

We are encouraging bloggers to write about the markup and help promote our tweetchat by linking to our Patriot Act Action Hub However, this tweetchat is distributed, and bloggers can also embed the chatroom itself into blog posts. Below you'll find the embed code: <iframe src="http://www.coveritlive.com/index2.php/option=com_altcaster/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=4ac261881a/height=400/width=400" scrolling="no" height="400px" width="400px" frameBorder ="0" ><a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=4ac261881a" >HJC Patriot Amendment Act Markup Tweetchat</a></iframe>

Summary of the the bills:

The USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 (HR 3845 bill pdf via EFF): Like Sen. Feingold’s JUSTICE Act, this bill provides a substantial number of new checks and balances to curb the government’s spying powers under the Patriot Act.

The FISA Amendment Act of 2009 (HR 3846 bill pdf via EFF): This bill is directed at reforming last year’s FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which broadly expanded the government’s authority to wiretap Americans without warrants. Even worse, the FAA did this by granting immunity to telecommunications companies who broke the law through assisting in the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program. Fortunately, this bill repeals the FAA's telco immunity provision Very importantly, this bill prohibits the "bulk collection" of Americans' emails and phone calls amidst many other reforms For more details, EFF has provided a pdf section by section analysis.

Resource: EFF's analysis of HR 3845 and HR 3846


Summary of ongoing campaigns to pass the bills:

The Patriot Act Action Hub a central hub for actions and news items during the Patriot Act reauthorization debate.

The next major action in the House is the Judiciary Committee markup of Patriot Act and FISA reform legislation, expected during the week of November 2. The Senate floor discussion has not yet been scheduled.

Below you will find details of our ongoing campaigns, a news roundup, and other available resources:

Ongoing Campaigns Tweet from our Tweeting points Take ACLU action: Ask your representative to co-sponsor the USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009. Help collaboratively write our new open letter Write a blog post using our blogger Template for HJC Patriot Act and FISA Reform Join our Facebook status campaign Help craft our "narrative in progress" Send a Letter to the Editor using our template

News Roundup The Center for Democracy and Technology discusses how the House Patriot Act bill draws broad support on account of National Security Letter fix: Michael Anne Conley posts about how mental health privacy is at risk Marcy Wheeler takes on Eric Holder’s state secrets invocation Glenn Greenwald writes about how Obama seeks to block wiretap suit through state secrets provision Jon Pincus posts on social network activism and the future of civil liberties Marcy Wheeler discusses the “investigations into people who have nothing to do with terrorism” Marcy Wheeler posts on "get democrats to cave on Patriot" hearing Defend Civil Rights post at Care2 EFF explains the two new surveillance bills

Other Resources Get FISA Right blog Blogger Template for HJC Patriot Act and FISA Reform HJC Tweet Construction Page List of House Judiciary Committee members Twitter and Facebook accounts Instructions for Twitter and getting-started info

Facebook and Twitter accounts of the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee:

HJC Member	Facebook Account	Twitter Account
Chairman John Conyers
Rep. Howard Berman	Howard Berman supporter page
Rep. Rick Boucher	Rick Boucher supporter page
Rep. Jerrold Nadler
Rep. Bobby Scott
Rep. Mel Watt
Rep. Zoe Lofgren	Zoe Lofgren supporter page
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee	Sheila Jackson Lee supporter page	@RepJacksonLee
Rep. Maxine Waters	Maxine Waters supporter page	@MaxineWaters
Rep. Bill Delahunt
Rep. Robert Wexler	Robert Wexler supporter page
Rep. Steve Cohen	Steve Cohen supporter page
Rep. Hank Johnson	Hank Johnson supporter page	@RepHankJohnson
Rep. Pedro Pierliusi	Pedro Pierliusi supporter page	@PedroPierliusi
Rep. Mike Quigley	Mike Quigley fan page	@Quigleycampaign (campaign account)
Rep. Luis Gutierrez	Luis Gutierrez supporter page
Rep. Brad Sherman	Brad Sherman supporter page	@BradSherman
Rep. Tammy Baldwin	Tammy Baldwin fan page	@RepTammyBaldwin
Rep. Charles Gonzales
Rep. Anthony Weiner	Anthony Weiner supporter page	@anthonyweiner
Rep. Adam Schiff	Adam Schiff fan page	@RepAdamSchiff (no tweets)
Rep. Linda Sanchez	Linda Sanchez supporter page
Rep. Debra Wasserman-Schultz
Rep. Dan Maffei	Dan Maffei supporter page	@DaMaffei (no tweets)

About Get FISA Right:

The "Senator Obama, Please Get FISA Right" MyBo group started organically before a group of volunteers helped it go viral in 2008. Bloggers were undoubtedly instrumental in that effort through their writing----and we need your help again today!

As the MyBo group gained a large following, we used a wiki/collaborative process to create an open letter to Obama. A vast amount of blog coverage begot MSM coverage, and in unprecedented fashion Obama responded to the group both on MyBo and on the Huffington Post. We lost the legislative battle--and the content of Obama's response was not what we were hoping for--but we were successful at helping change the national debate, attaining Obama's attention, and successfully opening up a direct line of communication with him.

Now, with PATRIOT Act and FISA reform coming up, many of us are back and ready to expand upon last summers' successes. Please join us Organizing for America, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Wetpaint.