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

211 points by zmanian 13y ago

zmanian 13y ago
Get involved: We organize primarily through our mailing list. http://restorethefourthsf.com/mailinglist/ http://restorethefourthsf.com/mailinglist/ & Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/RestoretheFourthSF/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/RestoretheFourthSF/
belluchan 13y 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.
- zmanian 13y 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/?action_KEY=9437 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 13y 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.
  - belluchan 13y 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.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > A recall will never happen. True. > California is too big of a state If the size of California were an issue, it would prevent recalls of the governor, as well; the reason it will never happen has nothing to do with that, it has to do with the fact that US Senators can't be recalled.
  - whyenot 13y 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 http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/recalls/recall.pdf
  - dragonwriter 13y 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 13y 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.
  - belluchan 13y ago
    California elects republicans statewide all the time. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pete Wilson, a Senator can win too. Not that I would want them to.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > California elects republicans statewide all the time. Well, California has an unusually large number of separately elected Statewide officers, but for the big three statewide offices (Governor and the two US Senators), "all the time" would be something of an exaggeration. In the last 19 years, Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection as Governor is the only time a Republican has been elected to one of those big-3 statewide offices in a normal election. > Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected in a recall election which uses different procedures (an open plurality election with no primary to filter the field, with a side-by-side majority vote on the same ballot for actually recalling the incumbent -- more people voted for the incumbent Democrat to be retained than voted for the Republican Schwarzenegger to replace him.) > Pete Wilson Pete Wilson -- the last Republican elected Senator from or Governor of California, was last elected Governor 19 years ago. The political landscape has changed a bit since then. > a Senator can win too. Pete Wilson did it the last time 25 years ago. Sure, the Republicans could run a candidate that could win, but they haven't shown much propensity to do so.
  - wavefunction 13y ago
    There are other Democrats out there. She has seniority in the Senate though, which is unfortunately valuable to far too many Californians.
    - discardorama 13y ago
      Honestly, I doubt that most of the voters even know what her seniority gets them.
andyl 13y ago
Feinstein consistently opposes the interests of her own Tech industry. She's gotta go.
- mikeyouse 13y 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._federal_government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_100_Contractors_of_the_U.S....
  - gbhn 13y 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...)
- rhizome 13y ago
  Check out the business of her husband before deciding what "her" industry is.
- angryasian 13y 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
timw6n 13y 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.
- rayiner 13y ago
  The organization opposing surveillance is the one putting the button there. Its pure propaganda on their part.
  - TelmoMenezes 13y 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.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      I don't know how you're defining "significant." I don't think its appreciably higher now than it ever was. I think the latest news just validates people who have always been paranoid.
  - ScottBurson 13y 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.
    - zmanian 13y ago
godgod 13y ago
Muck Feinstein. Muck Mike Rogers as well. These two are the most corrupt advocates for increased NSA spying. They must go!
prolways 13y 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 13y 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
- zmanian 13y 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 13y 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.
- lambdasquirrel 13y ago
  So a logistics question then. How many staffers are there for a typical Senator's office?
- testrun 13y ago
  I do not agree. The SOPA petition worked. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sopa-petition-gets-millions-of-signatures-as-internet-piracy-legislation-protests-continue/2012/01/19/gIQAHaAyBQ_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sopa-petition...)
  - otterley 13y ago
    I suspect the SOPA petition alone was less effective than Google asking users to phone their Congressperson on every single search result page.
- rhizome 13y ago
  My belief is that silly internet petitions such as this are designed to steer people away from more effective techniques.
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    Not only that, but they also give people the impression that they did something useful and meaningful. So they are doubly dangerous.
patrickg_zill 13y ago
Feinstein's husband: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Blum 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Blum#Controversy
discardorama 13y 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 13y ago
pretty sure her office is around Santa Monica blvd. and Sepulveda IIRC, should anyone want to do protest more physically.
naaaaak 13y 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 13y 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 13y 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.

211 points by zmanian 13y ago

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

belluchan 13y 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.

zmanian 13y 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/?action_KEY=9437 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 13y 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.
- belluchan 13y 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.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > A recall will never happen. True. > California is too big of a state If the size of California were an issue, it would prevent recalls of the governor, as well; the reason it will never happen has nothing to do with that, it has to do with the fact that US Senators can't be recalled.
- whyenot 13y 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 http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/recalls/recall.pdf
- dragonwriter 13y 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 13y 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.
- belluchan 13y ago
  California elects republicans statewide all the time. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pete Wilson, a Senator can win too. Not that I would want them to.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > California elects republicans statewide all the time. Well, California has an unusually large number of separately elected Statewide officers, but for the big three statewide offices (Governor and the two US Senators), "all the time" would be something of an exaggeration. In the last 19 years, Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection as Governor is the only time a Republican has been elected to one of those big-3 statewide offices in a normal election. > Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected in a recall election which uses different procedures (an open plurality election with no primary to filter the field, with a side-by-side majority vote on the same ballot for actually recalling the incumbent -- more people voted for the incumbent Democrat to be retained than voted for the Republican Schwarzenegger to replace him.) > Pete Wilson Pete Wilson -- the last Republican elected Senator from or Governor of California, was last elected Governor 19 years ago. The political landscape has changed a bit since then. > a Senator can win too. Pete Wilson did it the last time 25 years ago. Sure, the Republicans could run a candidate that could win, but they haven't shown much propensity to do so.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  There are other Democrats out there. She has seniority in the Senate though, which is unfortunately valuable to far too many Californians.
  - discardorama 13y ago
    Honestly, I doubt that most of the voters even know what her seniority gets them.

andyl 13y ago

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

mikeyouse 13y 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._federal_government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_100_Contractors_of_the_U.S....
- gbhn 13y 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...)
rhizome 13y ago
Check out the business of her husband before deciding what "her" industry is.
angryasian 13y 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

timw6n 13y 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.

rayiner 13y ago
The organization opposing surveillance is the one putting the button there. Its pure propaganda on their part.
- TelmoMenezes 13y 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.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I don't know how you're defining "significant." I don't think its appreciably higher now than it ever was. I think the latest news just validates people who have always been paranoid.
- ScottBurson 13y 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.
  - zmanian 13y ago

godgod 13y ago

Muck Feinstein. Muck Mike Rogers as well. These two are the most corrupt advocates for increased NSA spying. They must go!

prolways 13y 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 13y 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

zmanian 13y 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 13y 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.

lambdasquirrel 13y ago
So a logistics question then. How many staffers are there for a typical Senator's office?
testrun 13y ago
I do not agree. The SOPA petition worked. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sopa-petition-gets-millions-of-signatures-as-internet-piracy-legislation-protests-continue/2012/01/19/gIQAHaAyBQ_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sopa-petition...)
- otterley 13y ago
  I suspect the SOPA petition alone was less effective than Google asking users to phone their Congressperson on every single search result page.
rhizome 13y ago
My belief is that silly internet petitions such as this are designed to steer people away from more effective techniques.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  Not only that, but they also give people the impression that they did something useful and meaningful. So they are doubly dangerous.

patrickg_zill 13y ago

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

discardorama 13y 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 13y ago

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

naaaaak 13y 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 13y 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 13y 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.