Cynthia from Momocrats; Mandy from ACLU; Marcy and Bill rom Emptywheel; Matt from CREDO; Jim Babka from Downsize dc; Kevin from EFF; Julian from Cato; James Cook; and Manny, Korky, Mark, Sally, Harry, and Jon from Get FISA Right

Key message: the Senate Judiciary Committee markup on Thursday is our best chance yet for significant reform to the PATRIOT Act and FISA.

Key Senators to target: Whitehouse, Specter, Schumer, and all SJC Dems

Numbers so far are decent -- 50,000 between CREDO Action/Democrats.com, EFF, Downsize DC. CREDO Action/Democrats.com seems to have the best viral spread on social networks; if you want to adapt "share with your friends" mechanism they're using, get in touch with Matt Lockshin.

We need a landing page: short summary of the issue and what's at stake, links to take action, a couple of quotes, where to find out more, and AV. Action: Harry to get something up. Once it's in decent shape, we'll start getting the link out by Twitter -- and hopefully any blog posts and emails.

Consensus: with a compelling call to action, we might get 10% of bloggers involved.


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Coming attraction: blogger's call Tuesday noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern
http://get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com/page/September+29+bloggers+phone+call
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Pre-meeting poll: will you have time to help? http://bit.ly/sep29poll
cynthia, mark, james cook
Harry's in the call as well
Jon: want to quickly go over the goals for the call
Jon: understanding longer term strategy on patriot act and fisa for the course of hte year
Jon: markup on Tuesday is but one battle. Hoping the call will focus on now and thursday, the consistent feedback from organizations working on this say the markup is key. Is the contours for ongoing fight in the senate
Jon: understadning goals/directions for acivism, particularly goal on call is catalyze short term blogging activity, recognizing how busy everyone is etc.
Jon: introducations as people come in
Jon: Mark, you recently talked with SJC contact
Mark: my central question with person I dealt with on other issues there is thursday do or die day
Mark: it will be on webcast, can watch on SJC site
Mark: no matter what question I ask or how I frame the question, this is a person I ahve dealt wiht quite a number of itmes, the only answer I got was some variation of "that's up to the senators".
thursday webcast: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=4093
Mark: my sense of it is that it's kind of a crap shoop. Frankly my feel, not based on any information, is that Leahy is rushing this through becasue it's very controversial under the umbrella or cover of all the health care stuff which has all the media attention
Mark: that kind of bothers me, but I will point out that SJC is by far the most progerssive committee in the congress. Every dem on it, except for Specter, was hand picked by Leahy. They are most progressive gorup of peiople you would ever want to meet
Jon: good point to make a strong showing
Marcy: I agree that they are trying to push this thorugh while everyone is busy with health care. They also admittedly are getting a lte start if this is goign to be done by Dec. I actually think on the House side you are going to find a lot more dissaray becasue Dems are lefter, GOP are righter
Marcy: I think partly it's that Leahy tried to start this two monhts ago, got nothing from admin, stating it now
Marcy: Have Leahy which makes some improvmeents on patirot, JUSTICE which makes pimprovements on Patriot and FISA, then severing of one aspect of what Feingold is trying to do with FISA away from other things he is trying to do
Marcy: at the same time, you have Leahy sitting on state secrets. In CA you have al haramin case which will be appealed, go to 9th circuit ,will say some limitations on state secrets, appeal to Scotus
Marcy: by all rights hsould open up what happened under warratnless wiretapping program, but Leahy is sitting on legislation to let courts push through al Harmanin case instead of congress
Kevin from EFF, Julian from CATO, others enter
Jon: looking over various bills, new repeal bill, and then whatever happens in the house
Kevin: current status of al Haramin, those bills wouldn't effect it at all. Question wehther FISA preempts state secrets, or whether they can make case based on unprivileged info, not using sealed document declared state secret. More pressing issue is Muhammad V Jefferson, which 9th circuit found no such thing as threshold dismissal based on state secrets. State secrets addressed by evidnece by evidence basis
Kevin: that is likely for Obama admin to seek review of. Presumably review will be denied, will seek SCOTUS review. As far as bills being sat on, the main issue there is they are waiting for admin position on the bills, admin has been less than speedy on that
Jon: one question is how much energy to focus on the markup on thursday, who are key senators to focus on on SJC.
Kevin: all the democrats, the importance can't be overemphasized
Kevin: if we don't get JUSTICE act reforms attached here, won't get htem anywhere
Kevin: goal of getting best bill out of SJC as possible
Kevin: indications that Leahy is intent on starting if not finishing mark up of that bill thursday
Kevin: incredibly important and time critical 2 fold mission: get as many co-sponsors, helps accomplshi ggoal 2. Dems support all JUSTICE based amendments to Leahy bill
Discussion of language. Kevin: in terms of twittering, certainly support JUSTICE gets the idea across
Julian: zeroing in on the most important stuff in JUSTICE. Unfortuante to get bogged down in side shows of less important stuff. Going to write something suggesting that roll back of FISA amendments, roll back of bulk collection, NSL reforms
Julian: way the JUSTICE act chagnes scope of NSLs, not sensitive info they could get before. Those are two big things at center of concern
Kevin: both agree and disagree with Julian
Kevin: certainly NSL reforms attainable, incredibly important. Very well perhaps gettable based on previous votes in the committee last year on identical amendments
Kevin: at same time, where possible, agree with Julian, it shouldn't overwhelm other discourse. HOw FAA works goign forward is the most important. Wroht mentioning when possible, is important because issue being clouded by term "retroactive immunity"
Kevin: not being clear or not realizing that it's not just retroactive, is prospective. Prevents courts from ever ruling on what kind of cooperation from the telecoms is actually legal
kevin: we think that's a serious, serious problem. Don't care to get nto an argument whether it's more important than this ort hat. Agree that NSLs are incredibly important, same with FAA stuf, but don't want to go overboard from distancing ourselves from the immunity issue
Kevin: if hte grassroots don't care, NGOs don't care, no one cares
Bill: along those lines, how would this proposed immunity affect your cases on appeal at this point?
Kevin: although district courts ordered dismissal, on appeal. Until final decision, upholding of decision, no more review available, 9th circuit says we lose, don't go up to supreme court or they say we lose. Until then, a chagne in the underlying law would revive our case
Kevin: basis for the dismissal would not longer exist, go back to where we were, as if it did not happen
Kevin: I haven't heard anything about what anyone is planning beyond it being included in Feingold's bill and Feingold Dodd et al bill
Kevin: in terms of amendments I would like to see, fi that ever got marked up, I woudl expect Specter would try to replace it with substitution procedure. I would expect to see that.
Kevin: or a CAPs proposal, last year Whitehouse and Specter tried hard to be compromise brokers with a substitution scheme. I wouldn't be surprised if you see that dynamic again
Marcy: if you get Whitehouse, you bring along Franken and Klobuchar. Whitehouse being very clearly intersted in fixing problems with NSLs and other patriot provisions. He seems pretty committed to the data mining, which is the bulk collection adn reverse targetting
Marcy: basically, Leahy is prusuing two strategies, both of which prohibit data mining stuff
Kevin: I must have missed tha tpart of ocnvesration, how do you mean
Marcy: Leahy has the Patriot renewal. he has picked up parts of Feingold's bill, both the minimization issue, some court review, some audits. He has pointedly stayed away from FISA bit.
Marcy: then he cosponsored immunity bit on FISA, but pointedly left out bulk collection and reverse targets, which Feingold ahs always been going after
Marcy: if you look at those two strategic elements, and that Kaughman is co-sponosr at least of patriot renewal, ahve signal from admin and Leahy to keep data mining in place
Kevin: dont' think taht's the case. Leahy voted for same last yaer
Kevin: made political calculus, by having his bill deal only with 4 quarters of patriot. Fact atht he is copsonosroeing bill on immunity, doesn't mean that he is opposed to ahving it included in his bill. Invited amendment
Marcy: NSLs, not data mining. has carved out everything but data mining. Fairly clear sign that says there are easy routes to go forward to fix things like NSls, probably kabuki efforts goign forward on immunity. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but you won't get Feinstein suppporting that
Kevin: don't doubt htat. But lot of things Leahy left out of the bill that doesn't necessarily mean he is opposed.
Marcy; not the data mining
Kevin: but your thesis is by leaving it out he wants ot preserve it, I'm not srue I buy that premise
Jon: useful landscape to udnerstand. ONe thing to talk about, is Marcy opinined that Whitehouse is the real key. Specter also is a great person to put pressure on, not least becasue he is one of few SJC members on twitter and is facing primary
Jon: alternate strategy, pressure all SJC members. Risks spreading resources too thin, but if get invovlement can spread widely
Jon: what do people think about targetting?
Kevin: depends on capability to target. For us easier to send alert to all senators. IF you ahve capabilitiy jsut of targetting committee members for this markup, would be most efficient use of resources
Kevin: sending support JSUTICE to republicans not going to get you anywhere
Kevin: democrats could certanly use shoring up. Whitehous is partiucalrly important, Specter and Schumer, all good targets
Kevin: whitehouse, specter, schumer
Marcy: agree on Schumer as well
Jon: given our limited resources...Matt, CREDO has some targetting ablity, right?
Matt: we do have some targetting abilities. Sent email out to our folks after bill was introduced. I didn't check in last couple hours, but was at 35,000 signatures last I checked.
Matt: many of those signatures are not in the state where there is someone on SJC committee. But have over 1,000 in some of hte states, like PA, ton in CA
Matt: question for me whether we can turn something around by tomorrow based on what is going on with health care. but if poeple have very targetted "ask", like targetting judiciary committee, might be able to pull something together
Matt: would be great thoug hif it's not just credo going out. Having people call in would be timely, would get lower rates, but we already have a petition
Matt: any of you ahve capacity to turn something around before the bill gets marked up?
Kevin: could you be more specifically? EFF has laert now for the markup
Matt: what are poeple actually doing with that? what's the ask?
Kevin: form to send email
Matt: anyone have anything else?
Julian: obviously CATO can't get directly involved in pushing partiucalr legislaiton. But my piece will be up tomorrow at American PRospect, also write on Economist blog, will throw in link to relevant petitions, later this week will have something more focused at Reason. Have reasonably good access to online political magazines
ACLU: going to do an action alert tomorrow
Jon: would ti be possible to include anything about doing something on twitter or facebook as supplmeent to email?
Mandy ACLU: I can ask
Matt: when we send email, has smaple tweet or facebook, just matters on what kind of code to put in. I can generate that code if we have something specific, especially for twitter
Matt: that's a simple way to leverage what you're doing, ahve the option of social media
Downsize DC's http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/new-campaign-roll-back-the-patriot-act
Jim downsizedc.org: sent out message to our base called roll back the patriot act. Calls for suport of JUSTICE Act and encouraging of amendments coming from taht act.
Jim: decent response. 2,000 messages in last 24 hours
Matt: anyone working with SJC members or aides? Sense of what the goal would be to get these people to move?
Mark: the problem is that underneath all of this, is the conversation btw Chris and his people at department of justice. Very private conversation representing Obama, who does not particularly apparently want that much in the way of change in reauthorization
Mark: some chagnes they already agree on that I think is represented in the Leahy bill. To me, adn I don't know this factually, but as a long time hill climber a lot of hte maneuvering you are seeing is because the justice dept has not or will not come down with final psoition on very things we are talking about
Mark: I was going to ask, can ACLU target by state? PA, MA, Deleware, what else do we need? WI, RI?
Mandy: I believe we are but I'll check
Mark: can ask people to send to their specific senators on the committee if you target those states
Mandy: i'm 90% sure that's what we're already doing, but I can find out
Minnesota
Jon: starting to shift over more directly to activism section
Jon: one of key ideas in trying to kic something off here, specifically focusing in on twitter and facebook activism
Jon: idea underlying is trying to recapuitulate other successful social activism campaigns that have psarked things in blogosphere, then get active on twiter/facebook, and wihtin 48 hours got into traditional medai
Jon: don't need a huge number of blog posts to start it off if there is enough natural interest in the idea
Jon: that's what underlayed GFR last summer. Then were Evan Bayh, Amazon Fail, (others) repeated pattern. Need to get bloggers involve,d can we get critical mass of them?
Jon: we need an inspiring call to action, and then a bunch of resources for those inspired, so they can tell readers how they can get invovled
Matt: anyone with capacity to ptich to media willing to pitch so that the article would hit before the vote thursday?
Julian: I am doing that already, articles in American Prospect and Reason, can get media department working.
Jon: pattern is until there is stuff happening, the traditional doesn't get involved, almost always fueled by enw media. Those are folks we should pitch to initially
Marcy: you've got health care. some of that focus will be lessened after today, but you are going to see the house get active again. You've got Afghanistan. Between those two, bloggers are workign 24 hours on those issues
Marcy: going to have torture, upcomign news this week. Realistically, not going to get bloggers to pick this up righ now. too many other things which are incredibly important
Marcy: other reality we need now not needed in 2008 is clealry defined legislative strategy. Back then was about how you get dems to pass soomething Bush would veto regardless, this point you need to find some way to prove legislative backing such that Obama takes notice
Marcy: someone just said, Obama doens't want Patriot to be voted down. Wtih John Brennan, he doesn't want to take away the toys that data mining gives him
Marcy: question s of finding pockets of time for blogger attention. I think blogging has matured, but with president in whitehouse need viable legislative strategy
Jon: you don't think people would be up for taking advantage of this 48 hour window with short term elgislative battles?
Jon: I can see that many to most won't have the time to participate. But what's your gut instinct? only a quarter of hte past bloggers, more like 10%?
Marcy: 10%. not Jane. Not McJoan. Not natioanl security blgogers. Glenn is hitting afghanistan. Might find a little attention, but the group we did in huge sections in 2007/8 are going to be dedicated ot health care
Jon: we don't need the 5 posts a day. We need 1 post btw now and thursday. Looking at GFR's growth numbers, the growth from any given site happened the first itme they posted on it
Jon: subsequent things even on huge sites helped a little, but other than slashdot didn't have huge numbers by subsequent votes
Marcy: focus on slashdot
Jon: good point
Marcy: kevin, seems like you would be good for those guys
Kevin: we don't talk to slashdot directly, but they post our stuff when we post it
Kevin: I know journalists at wired, they ahve been covering this, but I"ll ping them
Jon: in the past they have done activism stories. Did one on GFR from activism perspective. Kevin, do you know David? Look him up by email, thanks
Jon: technology and plitics blogosphere one area to look at. How about are there individual progressive or libertarian bloggers?
(not sure who spoke) : I can get spencer ackermann to post on this
Jon: that would create reasonable chance that we get going on this
Jon: i was wondering from Cynthia's perspective, how many momocrats are focused on health care stuff. Even with that, how many would be up for short post about this?
Cynthia: I think it'd be me, it'd redirect to a lot of hte things coming out tomorrow or the things that Julian and Mark have passed along in email
Jon: idea is something that takes little time, refers to other things, has short call to action for twitter/faceook/phone
Cynthia: i'm not clear at this point what we are calling on in the aciton
Jon: correct, we don't yet know that
Jon: a lot of this is assessign waht the blogosphere support would be
Bill: I talk to Eisenberg all the time. he is having dinner with Lichtblau tonight. If you want me to pitch something that will get to him, have to do it immediately
Jon: ok. What should we pitch to Lichtblau, seems like a great opportunity?
Bill: i'll let you decide that, but will be happy to transfer it to him immediately
Sally (?): from an individually perspective on this, I don't know how many people are aware that this is up for marking up, going through committee
Jon: Kevin's point that this vote is pretty close to do or die, adn there's theis last minute online activism stuff
Jon: what about that as a story, foucsing on the immediacy?
Kevin: the MSM has not picked up on yet, they ahve done stories on patriot, ahven't on prospects for FISA ammendments yet. Lichtblau and Risen did several stories this spring about significant problems about implementing FAA that led to overcollection of million of amercians emails
Kevin: followup of that story tied into reporting on the debate over FISA Amendmetn Act reforms as opposed to simply phrasing it in terms of patriot would be intersting, tie back to previous reporting
Kevin: for exampl,e the bulk collection amenmdnet would eliminate the possiblity of such massive overcollection in the future
Julian: i'm not sure that's true really. This is a legal thing, btu considering how jsutice deparmtent defined acquisiton, not clear how much taht does
Jon: put process hat on, interesting piture iwht Lichtblau, no matter that
Bill: the better it's packaged the better it will be
Matt: I don't know if bloggers/online jouranlists not in progressive blogopshere, but if someone can put together a one page overview of what is happening, get together quotes form major orgs, links to relevant 3/5 posts, any audio/visual, roudnup call to action
Check out our resources page for that info: http://get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com/page/JUSTICE+Act+Action+Blogger+resources
Or a lot of that information
Mandy: quotes on JUSTICE, can send you released
Matt: more than just press release. Quotes are find, but need to be whole context/framing, that really hits on why now, and what the actual action is. Relation btw action and ultimate goal. Something focused on why someone should care about this btw now and thursday
Matt: lots of poeple won't be in the weeds enough to understand that. To the degree the press release does that, in addition to that if bloggers link to things online
Matt: type of things to make it easier for someone to throw up a post on that
Matt: also need links to call to action
Matt: I saw on twitter, is it along the way for our call to action?
Mark: yes
Matt: i can put in a hashtag, where if someone is logged into twitter, can put it in html that poeple can just click it and it autmoatically populates twitter feed. Hopefully also will be useful
Matt: for FB, need to figure out what the page we want to chair is. What is the landing space that will orient someone that cares about FISA or Patriot act but have no idea waht the JUSTICE act is
Mark: ACLU coalition letter to JUSTICE act cosponsors and Feingold, I thought, was great piece
Jon: on the landing page, to make sure we know waht you want, quick orientation about waht the issues are, waht's at stake, hereis the link to take action, and here is where you can find out more. along with somethign easy
Matt: needs to have info for those who want to dig into it, but honestly a lot of our activists will trust ACLU/EFF. If you say this is a to fix these things, characterize it, that's enough for htem to know it's important
Matt: they just need to understand why they are taking action. Are predisposed to taking action. Can't jsut link to ACLU alone, not the call to action. If there is a call to action with links to ways to take action, leads to more info for those who want to dig in, would be ideal
Jon: everyone agree that's the key thing that's needed?
I offer to help out with that
Jon: some of this is the proof reading, the double checking of links, the giving feedback on how to make it crisp
Matt: I think the amking it crisp is less important than getting it up, making sure we have time to spread the links around, on a very short time line, might not be perfect
Sally: I'd be around all evening
Jon: when Harry gets someting up, using mailing list for this call will send out to everybody
Jon: do that, in parallel, pitching to individual bloggers and media people, and Bill I'll try to take waht we just said here and digest it into a useful email and get that to you
Bill: very good
Sally: Fiar.org and Media Matters, would cover lack of media attention on this and single payer as part of a pattern?
Jon: certainly true, anyone know someone we can pitch taht story to
Matt: not really in Media Matters mission
Sally: know someone who has a meeting wiht Fair.org on healtchare soon, can pitch or give contact info
matt: in framing of this, should avoid phrase do or die. If we do not succeed which we may not, want to keep fighitng. Say it's our best chance, why we have to do it now. Won't be as negative
Kevin: our best chance yet
Jon: well said
"our best chance yet"
Kevin: I have to run, but I look forward to seeing what you're comign up with, let me know other ways I can help
Jon: close to done, any other topics/questions?
Mandy: could you add me to email list, not sure I'm on it
Jon: shoot me email so I have yours, I'm jon@achangeiscoming.net
Jon: Bill or anyone else not on the list
Jon: thanks all, get notes and reports out, and good luck, will be amazing if it works!
Harry: Great call everyone!