From the blog of Wil Wheaton:

“You know, I was really annoyed with Hillary Clinton’s campaign when it went Rovian. But she stood up for our Constitution today. She stood up for our civil liberties today. Barack Obama did not, after promising us that he would. I am disgusted with Barack Obama right now. Completely disgusted.”

From: WilWheaton.net

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Senate this afternoon passed the FISA Amendments Act, broadly expanding the president’s warrantless surveillance authority and unconstitutionally granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the president’s illegal domestic wiretapping program. The House of Representatives passed the same bill last month, and President Bush is expected to sign the legislation into law shortly.

“It is an immeasurable tragedy that just after its return from the Fourth of July holiday, the Senate has chosen to pass a bill that betrays the spirit of 1776 by radically expanding the president’s spying powers and granting immunity to the companies that colluded in his illegal surveillance program,” said Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “This so-called compromise bill represents a shameful capitulation to the overreaching demands of an imperial president. As Senator Leahy put it in yesterday’s debate, the retroactive immunity provision of the bill upends the scales of justice and makes Congress and the courts handmaidens to the White House’s cover-up of its illegal surveillance program.”

(NOTE: I have met Kevin Bankston — he helped me out with some legal questions during the recording of Sir Millard Mulch’s “How To Sell…”)

From: EFF.org

“I will MAKE it legal.” -Senator Obamapatine

What Every American Needs to Know (and Do) About FISA Before Tuesday, July 8th from Tim Ferriss on Vimeo.

The above video is from The Blog of Tim Ferriss. Dr. Zoltan followed the instructions presented below and urges all humans in the United States to do so also likewise. 

Daniel explains below several important reasons to act in the next few hours (much more in the video), but for those who are prepared to spend 60 seconds to help protect their liberties and prevent warrantless wiretapping from becoming a new standard in the US, here are two options:

1. ALL AMERICANS: Go to the EFF website here and put in your zipcode to find your Senator’s phone number. Call them and read the short script on the same page. If no answer, click the link at the bottom of the page to e-mail them.
(Tell others verbally to go to “www.eff.org” and click “take action”)

2. OBAMA SUPPORTERS: Go to My.BarackObama.com here and join the group requesting he oppose (as he did earlier) the amendment. This takes about 30 seconds. I suggest changing “ListServ” in the bottom right to “Do not receive e-mails.”
(Tell others verbally to search “obama please vote no” on Google and My.BarackObama.com will be in the top 3 results, currently #1)

“So America is isolated economically: we don’t produce anything here anymore – we can’t be self-sufficient in terms of industry. We don’t make shoes here; we don’t make umbrellas, pencils. We make entertainment and information. We don’t even make the computers! We produce the ideas that occupy the computers. That’s why artists are so important right now – it’s one of the few things that we actually produce. So the arts are hot, some artists are successful – this whole area around here is full of artists, and they drove the real-estate prices up. So, now you can’t move into this county for less then 250,000 dollars. Thanks to the artists! You wonder why people get angry at artists – it’s not our fault – we’re just looking for low rent but the real-estate developers are following us, sniffing our butts wherever we go to find out where the next beautiful cheap real-estate is going to be…”

…and a special bonus:

“There’s no leftist movement in America, there’s no populist movement here, and the best think that could happen is that this thing just breaks up. So right now I am in favor of the politics of the very worst. I wasn’t going to vote against Bush. For one thing, I’ve never voted in my life and I didn’t want to ruin my lifetime record for something as stupid as that. I didn’t vote FOR Bush either, but I knew he was going to win whether it was legal or not. It was clear that he would win. Actually, we are very close to some kind of weird post-modern fascism here, including the Reichstag Fire and the whole thing.”

To read the entire interview with Hakim Bey (including the curse words, which were removed from this post), go to: http://sasha.miltsov.org/krasoty/bey1