ALERT: Tell Congress to Grow a Spine!

From People for the American Way:

The fight to restore oversight, accountability and your constitutional rights is on! Congress still has the chance to say NO, definitively and without equivocation, to spying on Americans without a warrant.

Yesterday saw the first movement of legislation to fix the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and replace the deceptively-named Protect America Act (or PAA, which grants the Bush-Cheney administration unprecedented authority to spy on Americans without warrants). The House Judiciary and Intelligence committees both marked up the Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective (RESTORE) Act of 2007 (H.R. 3773).

The RESTORE Act does improve upon the PAA. However, this fight is just getting started and more legislative options, as well as possible improvements to this bill, are still on the table. That is why we need to keep the pressure up.

But while we're pressuring Congress to strengthen the legislation -- for instance, by adding explicit requirements for individualized warrants -- the White House and its Republican allies in both the House and the Senate will be using every procedural tool and political tactic at their disposal to extend the administration's wiretapping and surveillance authority (permanently if possible). And consistent with their general phobia of accountability, they're pushing for immunity for those in the telecommunications industry who may have broken the law by assisting the administration with domestic spying.

The Right is already leaning hard on members of Congress to buckle on accountability, oversight and defending due process and the Fourth Amendment.

Don't let them sacrifice our constitutional rights on the altar of "compromise." Join the thousands who have already signed the petition and demand that they show some backbone!

Will members of Congress stand up to the Bush-Cheney administration, or will they show about as much backbone as a jellyfish?

Tell them it's time to show some spine.

20,000 civil liberties activists have already signed the petition. Help us get to 50,000 before the floor vote expected next week!