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Important documents to read

• 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
• The script for our Don't let our Constitution Die ad, a very succinct statement of what we think is wrong with FISA.
• Jon Pincus' How will the Obama administration respond on immunity?
  

• Dawn Teo's Networked Obama FISA Group Takes Fight Forward, The Huffington Post, July 9. The history of the first two weeks.
• Barack's July 3 response to our open letter (and discussion)
• Our July 9 open letter after the vote (our most recent communication with Barack)
  

Some open questions

• Do we remain a group of Obama supporters (a "loyal opposition"), or become a multi-partisan group? See comments by Carlo, Thomas, Chip, Charles, and Peter here

• Do we remain focused on FISA, broaden our focus to civil liberties or Constitutional issues more generally, or expand things even further to include issues like the EPA's IRIS regulations? In July/August, an overwhelming majority of members supported a broad constitutional focus, and Ryan, Grampswayne, Chip and others agree here, although there are other opinions as well.
  
• On the Facebook Wall, JJ asks "Has eliminating the patriot act come up yet? that would be a big step forward in constitutionalism."
• If we decide to go that route, do we want to change our name -- and can we do that without losing our brand equity?
  
• What's the right timing to crank things up again? See comments by Laura and John here and JG, kbeck, Lane, and Charles here. The ACLU has warrantless spying as #1 in the "first 100 days" section of their transition plan.
  
• When is this issue likely to come before Congress? Action needed: find out the best estimates of the legislative calender (from the ACLU).
  
• Should we do something timed for the inauguration?
  
• Thomas suggests an ad in the Washington Post .
• What about another SaysMe.tv cable TV ad? See the page on the Inauguration ad
• Update, December 2: Inauguration ad page updated after a discussion with Brendan of SaysMe
  
• Shelly points out that an audio ad for podcasts could be useful as well.
  
• See Jim's detailed update on in-person protests at the inauguration here.
  

• How can we communicate more effectively? See the discussion between Frank and Thomas starting here.
• How to get back in touch with our 23,000 members on my.barackobama.com (myBO), most of whom unsubscribed from the email list? (The email list currently has 2680 subscribers, although some of those accounts may have been abandoned back in July; Joan's test mail got about ? responses.)
• Should we reopen the my.barackobama.com group's mailing list as an unmoderated list, at least to try it? Thomas proposed reopening the list here, and Andy agreed in a reply; Lee raised some concerns; an overview of the discussion so far is here.
• Update, November 30: is the change.org competition a good reason do do this? Jon thinks so.
  
• How to communicate with President Obama? Frank kicked off a thread and suggested weekly videos; Jenny suggests using ivotedforyoubut.com, and Jon suggested another open letter.
  
• Craig, Peter, and ravenwind pointed out that we can use change.gov. Discussion thread here. Change.gov has just introduced discussions, the first one on health care ... will there be one civil liberties?
  
• Patrick suggests putting a link to the “Share Your Vision” portion of Obama’s change.gov site the way EPIC does
  
• Sarah mentioned the book Letters to Obama.
• How best to use social network sites like Facebook, MySpace, BlackPlanet, Bebo, Twitter, etc.?
  
• Jon solicited ideas on Facebook. Action needed: can people start up conversations on other sites?
• How frequently to send out messages on Facebook? There's a discussion between Thomas, Jon, Laura, and Lane starting partway through an thread here.
• please vote up our Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties idea on change.org. See the message board thread for updates and suggestions about promotions.
• Update, December 2: in second place in the criminal justice category; if we're still in the top three at the end of the year, we'll move into the second round of voting. We're #3 overall, and there are also two other PATRIOT Act-related ideas in the top 20. Jon's most recent update is here.
• Update, December 2: working on a guest blog post for Change.org's Criminal Justice blog
  
• Is there a way to work with the new Daily Kos site Congress Matters? Ryan kicked off a discussion here.
• Update, December 2: Ryan points out that RSS feeds would make people's lives easier.

• How to collaborate with groups like EFF, ACLU, Strange Bedfellows, People's Campaign for the Constitution (PCC), etc.?
  
• See Chip Pitts' proposal for PCC collaboration here and the discussion later in the thread
• November 21: See the conference call notes and discussion thread.
• Can we work with ACLU to help draw attention to their transition plan, and/or EFF to help highlight their recommendations for President Obama on immunity?
• Action: Jon touching base with EFF (December 3)
• Harry discusses the advantages of forging an alliance with the Center for American Progress.
• Patrick suggests EPIC; Jon agrees, and suggests possible next steps.
• Update, December 2: Action: Jon touching base with EFF (week of December 1)
• How do we make decisions on questions like these?