Liminal states

Two and a half years after I wrote It’s the Fourth of July and we’re fighting for our civil liberties, it’s another activism-filled holiday. Today’s House vote extending the Patriot Act until December went as expected, passing 275-144.   Now the action shifts to the Senate; EFF has more.   Nothing to see here, move along, move along …

Or maybe not.  27 Republicans bucked their leadership and stood up for the Constitution.  Walter Jones of North Carolina joined Tom McClintock of California in apologizing for their past support of the Patriot Act.  Jason Chaffetz of Utah and others who voted for HR 514 spoke of the importance of having hearings and looking to amend the process.  At the very least, it’ll be hard for the Obama Administration and their Congressional allies to get the multi-year extension they want.  With Ron Paul once again rocking CPAC and contemplating another presidential run, we might well see some fireworks later this year.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile in the Middle East, the 25 Bahman protests in Iran followed revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.  There are estimates of tens to hundreds of thousands of people in Tehran, and big protests in Shiraz and Esfehan.  A re-energized Sea of Green? With the “Days of Rage” in Bahrain, and protestors battling demonstrations in Yemen, there’s a sense that something’s in the air …

I spent the with my Facebook and Twitter avatars showing support for the protesters in Iran, glued to Twazzup, splitting time between the #25Bahman and #iranelection and  the Patriot Act debate.  There were familiar names everywhere, my Get FISA Right friends like Sally, Patrick, Korkie, Mark, Jim and Julian … our allies from BORDC and EFF like Shahid, Rainey, Chip, and Kevin … and from the #iranelection hashtag: @IranRiggedElection, @iran88, Josh Shahryar, @oxfordgirl, @lissnup, and perhaps even the unexpected return of @persiankiwi. Not to sound like a broken record or anything, but social networks really can change the world.

The fight will resume tomorrow, all over the world.  Tonight, though, I’ll be hanging out with the woman I love celebrating Valentine’s Day.  How cool is that?

jon

Monday at 6:30 Eastern, the House is once again voting on HR514, which extends the PATRIOT Act until December of this year without introducing any new safeguards.   So please try to find time this weekend to get involved and get the word out!

To start with:

• use POPVOX to ask your representative know to oppose HR514 and reintroduce the JUSTICE Act
• contact your legislators via email via Demand Progress, ACLU, EFF, or Downsize DC
• or call your representative at (202) 224-3121

Then help get the word out!

• email this info to people
• share it on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter
• leave a comment on any blog posts, articles, Facebook groups, and message board threads discussing the PATRIOT Act and make sure to include the link to the POPVOX page: http://bit.ly/oppose514
• and if you’re on Twitter, tweet early and often using #patriotact hashtag — some suggested tweets in the first comment

Get FISA Right will be having a chat during the vote on Monday — watch our blog at http://getfisaright.wordpress.com/ for updates.

Have a great weekend … and make some noise!

jon

It’s time to go on the offensive! Here’s the action alert Bill of Rights Defense Committee just sent out. Please help by using POPVOX to support the reintroduction of the JUSTICE Act, and getting the word out widely in email, via Facebook, and on Twitter. The House is expected to vote again early next week so now is a critical time to make some noise!

– jon

Ten years after passing the USA PATRIOT Act, Congress is again debating this enormous expansion of government power. With three provisions set to expire at the end of this month, and Tuesday’s revolt in the House against fast-track reauthorization, there has never been a better time to insist that Congress restore constitutional rights.

Take action now. Demand that your congressional representatives support meaningful reforms through the JUSTICE Act.

A law so extensive that many members of Congress admitted to having never read it, the USA PATRIOT Act has been in place for too long—and there has been too little debate on its dramatic expansion of executive power—to allow a reauthorization without debate.
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Draft! Revised version to appear on NWEN’s blog.

In the first three parts of the series (1, 2, 3) we got to an initial version of an executive summary and begin iterating on it. This installment focuses on improvements in a couple of individual sections. For impatient readers, here’s the tips:

• Get feedback from a lot of people — they’ll see different things
  
• You can get great feedback even if people don’t read the document
• Iterate repeatedly.  Incremental progress adds up.
  
• A picture is worth 1000 words

Read on for more …

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Images from Twazzup’s Patriot Act page as the House prepares to vote again on the Patriot Act extension.  The refrigerator magnets on the top are the most common words and hashtags.

You can weigh in on the head-breaking yourself via POPVOX, Demand Progress, ACLU, EFF, Downsize DC or the phone. Julian Sanchez’ Now what? and the ACLU’s letter describe why you should ask your Representative to oppose HR514, the sneak attempt to extend the Patriot Act without a debate.

Hey, guess what?  Civil liberties activism and psytrance!

Back in 2008, It’s the Fourth of July and we’re fighting for our civil liberties was written the day after Senator Obama responded to Get FISA Right’s open letter.  It was a great moment in grassroots civil liberties activism, and the bonds we formed then have remained.  It’s Goa Gil’s birthdy, and we’re *still* fighting for our civil liberties is from October 2009, in the midst of the battle over Patriot Act renewal.  Hail Eris!  All Hail Discordia! is from December 2010, featuring wikileaks and anti-TSA activism.  Hey wait a second.  I’m noticing a pattern here …

Tonight we’re in the middle of another Patriot Act battle; trying to building on an unexpected victory with grassroots activism.  As always the odds are stacked against us … hey, if changing the world were easy, everybody would do it!  With Tunisia and Egypt leading the way, 2011 is shaping up to be the year where social network activism breaks through internationally.  Will it happen here?

But the Patriot Act isn’t the only civil liberties battle that matters.  The TSA is still clinging to its scanning/groping policy, insisting that the only way to keep us safe is to touch the breasts and genitals of 2% of travellers (including all Sikhs, women wearing saris, and other “anomalies”).  And here in California, Save the Rave is taking the lead in standing for our right to peacefully assemble and fighting back against the war on fun.   When worlds collide …

So after spending the last week hunched over a computer dealing with the bizarreness of legislative process (“S.249 is also S.289 is likely to make it to the floor, while S.193 aka S.290 may get marked up by the SJC, but how to reconcile with HR 514?”), it was great to go out tonight to Synchronize, San Francisco’s Wednesday night psytrance weekly.  As usual, there were few dozen people there, and the DJs tonight were great.  I got there at 11:30 and danced until 1:55, when it closed.

Tomorrow’s back to work, and I’ll be hurting in the morning. But it’s worth it.

I heart psytrance.

Draft! Work in progress! Feedback welcome!

Talk about a shocker!  24 Republicans (including 8 new members) joined with 124 Democrats to stand up for civil liberties and defeat an attempt to sneak Patriot Act Reauthorization through the House.  Here’s what EFF, Wired, and the Washington Post have to say about this unexpected victory.

Thanks to everybody who joined in the flash activism campaign and made some noise!  It was a great multi-partisan campaign that broke through the media blackout and got some attention.  So let’s take a moment to celebrate!

Okay, now back to work.
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Draft! Revised version to appear on NWEN’s blog.

In the first two parts of the series (1, 2) we looked at the reasons to do a one-page executive summary and made some initial progress — enough to get to the point where we could get some useful feedback.  Now we’re in the heart of the iteration loop, steadily improving it.  For impatient readers, here’s the tips:

• Advisor time is a scarce resource, so make good use of it. Let them know where you want help: which questions are open, what sections you want to concentrate on.
• Think about your goals and a rough agenda for each meeting to make sure you use your time well. Try to give people enough time to read the document before the meeting.
• Be yourself, tell a story, and try to write the way you speak.  Try verbally explaining why your idea is so great and ask what resonates, then incorporate that language into your one-pager.
  

At the end of part 2, I had set up a phone meeting with somebody I’ll call “Rebecca” to give me feedback on my one-page executive summary.  I still had a lot of holes in the document, so I took another pass through it and put in something for every section except the financial projections.  As usual it took longer than I expected so before I realized it, it was almost 6 p.m.   Yikes!

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ACTION ALERT: Ask Obama to veto the PATRIOT Act, April 5.

ACTION ALERT: Meet with members of Congress about the PATRIOT Act, April 18-May 1

Twazzup did a custom Twitter backchannel for Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference back in June 2009, and soon after that became the best way to follow the #iranelection protests. Later that year they were kind enough to set up getfisaright.twazzup.com and at least for me it remains the best way to follow the Patriot Act action on Twitter.

The buttons aren’t just refrigerator art, they let you see what words and hashtags are the most common … #p2 and #tcot are arch rivals (the biggest progressive and conservative hashtags) and unusually enough they’re in agreement right now: we are sick of Washington trying to sneak the Patriot Act extension past us rather than having a proper debate.

The “Most Popular Links” and “Popular Tweets” sections make it easy to see at a glance what’s going on — and you can click to translate foreign tweets into English. There’s also a useful (and pretty!) “community” section.

You don’t have to have a Twitter account to use Twazzup. If you want to join in the conversation, though, our If you’re new to Twitter page has some suggestions.

Please join us!
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Update, February 11: The House will be voting on HR 514 again soon.  Keep making noise!  Shahid Buttar’s Demand JUSTICE for the PATRIOT Act has the latest.

Key provisions of the Patriot Act will sunset unless Congress renews them by the end of February. The Obama Administration is working with its allies in Congress to extend Bush Administration policies including National Security Letters , “sneak-and-peak”, and warrantless wiretapping.  On February 8, the House unexpectedly stood up and defeated HR 514, which would reauthorize the odious clauses until December.  It’s back for another vote, though.  With there are three bills in the Senate, and Congress is on recess the last week of the month, it’s not a pretty picture.

Time to make some noise.

Fortunately, there’s an app for that!

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Draft! Revised version with better takeaways posted on NWEN’s blog.

In part 1 of the series, we looked at reasons to write an executive summary, highlighted resources like Rebecca Lovell’s The Art of the One-Page App and Garage Technology Ventures’ Writing a compelling executive summary, and introduced the agile approach to writing an executive summary: make progress, get feedback, iterate.  Here’s the key takeaways for part 2:

1. Don’t be afraid to write down something aspirational or funny.  you can always go back and edit it later.
   
2. Start by getting quick feedback on individual sections even before you’ve got a draft of the whole document
3. Spend a few minutes preparing before any discusison with a potential advisor, even if it’s just a phone call or IM
   

Read on for more!
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Update, February 2: Final version posted on NWEN’s blog.

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