On August 4, 2007 Congress passed legislation that attempts to legitimize warrantless surveillance of U.S. persons who are not acting as ‘agents of a foreign power.’ Congress’s action may have been well-intentioned, but was too far-reaching in the scope of what it attempts to authorize, and goes beyond interpretation of law to a point where the Fourth Amendment constitutional right is violated. It does not take a great imagination to see how warrantless monitoring of U.S. persons around the globe could negatively affect not only Peace Corps, but the safety and Constitutional rights of all U.S. citizens. By a strange twist of reasoning, both houses of Congress, and the President, are asking the people of the United States to accept the idea that if you are in another country, and electronic monitoring is being performed by an agent of our government upon your person, then you are not being subjected to electronic surveillance. In other words, by passing the “Protect America Act of 2007,” they’ve literally redefined what constitutes “electronic surveillance” so that even if it is happening, the monitoring action by definition is claimed not to even exist.
RPCV Colin G. Gallagher writes: Surveillance of U.S. Citizens at Home and Abroad: A Constitutional Issue
Surveillance of U.S. Citizens at Home and Abroad: A Constitutional Issue (And what you can do about it)
by Colin G. Gallagher, RPCV
I present this article in hopes that fellow RPCVs will recognize and act upon the societal problems posed by recent events which have transpired in the realm of surveillance of the citizenry. Recent actions of our Congress have endangered not only the mission, and the lives, of PCVs in the field, but as well, have endangered the safety which comes from the Consitutional freedoms afforded to all U.S. citizens. In this article I will explain in detail how this has happened, and some steps you can take to help. While the length and detail of this article may be considered by some to be overly extensive, I have found it necessary to provide a surplus of detail in this article, in order to avoid the possibility of a surplus of criticism from those who would argue that the facts aren’t right.
Background
As background and history on where I stand on this issues, I believe that safety of not just PCVs, and not just U.S. citizens, but all citizens of the world is paramount, and that we must preserve the rule of law not only to protect our Constitution, but as well, to protect the relationships which we must preserve and enhance with people around the world. A country whose citizens are learning to not trust others, a country dominated by fear, by ardent militarism, and a society of informants with a surveillance mindset, cannot be a world leader, and cannot inspire and create the kind of relationships necessary to care for the safety of our future generations. We can improve and change this, and we should involve ourselves in ensuring that legislative efforts in our country to do not create ill effects for us all.
I should disclose, before I begin, that I am a Delegate of the California Democratic Party for the 27th Assembly District, but that I am writing this article as an RPCV, not as a Delegate. I am also a Member of Families of September 11, having lost a relative in the attacks. I am not enamored by either major party, and I believe that Congress and the President have departed from their Constitutional obligations, and that they have, to put it bluntly, “gone rogue.”
Originally, in a post in March and another in April of 2002, I wrote on Peace Corps Online regarding the interrelationship between the Freedom Corps Executive Order, the Executive Order establishing the Office of Homeland Security, the USA PATRIOT Act, and the President's 2003 Budget Initiatives for "Using 21st Century Technology to Secure the Homeland," showing how the relationships between these differing elements of law had created problems for Peace Corps’ independence. The publication of these articles helped lead to the stimulation of discussion and legislative authoring by RPCV Congresspersons Farr and Dodd, where in particular Congressman Farr made specific attempts to address this issue through draft legislation.
In past writings on Peace Corps Online I have also actively opposed the inclusion of Peace Corps in the National Call to Service plan, assisting in lobbying efforts which helped ensure independence of the Peace Corps from being utilized for military recruitment efforts, while also ensuring that the line would be clearly drawn between active duty personnel performing a military mission and Peace Corps Volunteers performing actions consistent with the Peace Corps Act. My posts in October of 2005 on Peace Corps Online were supportive of Congressman Kline, a Republican from Minnesota who served for 25 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and served as a military aide to both Carter and Reagan, because he introduced legislation that proposed removal of the Peace Corps as an option in the NCS program. As a result, included in the Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 was language to remove Peace Corps from the National Call to Service (NCS) military recruitment program. This language was successfully passed by Congress and signed by the President..
Warrantless Monitoring of US Citizens
In late December of 2005 I sent my Congresspersons a message asking that they initiate proceedings not only to investigate the circumstances of Presidential authorization of warrantless monitoring of U.S. citizens, but that they also initiate legal action (which Congresspersons are authorized to do on behalf of their constituents) to overturn any Presidential executive orders which authorized this warrantless and unconstitutional monitoring. (This stemmed from the President’s secret program which was designed to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which deliberates on matters particular to the application of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and can deny requests for electronic surveillance warrants.) An answer as to whether the requested initiation of legal action would be done was never received from any Senator or Representative.
Instead, Congress has opted to pass legislation now this August 4th of 2007, known as the Protect America Act of 2007, which attempts to legitimize warrantless surveillance of U.S. persons who are not acting as ‘agents of a foreign power.’ Congress’s action may have been well-intentioned, but was too far-reaching in the scope of what it attempts to authorize, and goes beyond interpretation of law to a point where the Fourth Amendment constitutional right is violated. It does not take a great imagination to see how warrantless monitoring of U.S. persons around the globe could negatively affect not only Peace Corps, but the safety and Constitutional rights of all U.S. citizens.
The option of demanding of our Congresspersons that they initiate legal action to remedy this situation is still before us as citizens and is now more relevant than ever. First, Congress should modify its hasty and ill-conceived approval of the Protect America Act, so that federal agents may utilize new and broader forms of warrants to cover certain types of activities that should be monitored abroad (upon probable cause being determined from patterns and frequencies of activities or other observations of non-personal telecommunications information), instead of conducting warrantless surveillance of U.S. persons. Second, all United States citizens who observe this message should consider it a constitutional duty to ask their Congresspersons to overturn any unconstitutional Presidential executive order, particularly ones which have resulted in unconstitutional action such as warrantless monitoring of U.S. citizens. Should U.S. citizens decide to compel their Congress to do so, this would be the third time in U.S. history that such an action (to overturn a Presidential executive order) has occurred, and it should be understood that I do realize the seriousness of what I am asking you, the reader, to do. I do however ask that the action be made and implore that you review fully the reasoning I have presented below.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads as follows:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
By a strange twist of reasoning, both houses of Congress, and the President, are asking the people of the United States to accept the idea that if you are in another country, and electronic monitoring is being performed by an agent of our government upon your person, then you are not being subjected to electronic surveillance. In other words, by passing the “Protect America Act of 2007,” they’ve literally redefined what constitutes “electronic surveillance” so that even if it is happening, the monitoring action by definition is claimed not to even exist.
Let’s have a look at the first few lines of this incredible Act as it was just passed by Congress:
“The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 105 the following:
CLARIFICATION OF ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE OF PERSONS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES
`Sec. 105A. Nothing in the definition of electronic surveillance under section 101(f) shall be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.”
The U.S. Code section(s) which predate the passage of the Protect America Act of 2007 being referred to here are 50 U.S.C., §§1801(f)(1-4) which contain the definitions for what legally constitutes electronic surveillance by definition. Most of these definitions already limit what can be defined as “electronic surveillance” to be activities within the United States, but some also refer to monitoring actions which could be conducted on U.S. citizens who could be inside or outside the United States (ref. 50 U.S.C., §1801(f)(2)): “the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States(…).” In the past, this particular definition was limited to application for acquisitions of wire communication, where the acquisition occurred in the United States, but could result in acquisition of communications from persons who are outside the United States. Thus, the avenue was always open to allow “electronic surveillance” to be construed to include, as part of its formal definition, acquisition of communication from persons outside of the United States who are communicating with someone in the United States.
With that understanding of the workings of the U.S. Code which predated the passage of the Protect America Act of 2007, stop here and contemplate the Protect America Act language closely. What Congress has just approved states that nothing in the definition of electronic surveillance shall be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States. This is a very indirect way of saying: If you are not in the United States, and we are monitoring you, by definition, you are not being monitored.
What this also means is that the provisions for warrants required to monitor such persons, which is to say, U.S. persons abroad, are also considered moot as a result of this legislation, because after all, if you are not actually conducting surveillance as defined by law against someone, you don’t have to obtain a warrant for the action.
If you are wondering if this just seems like a tricky way for the government to try and avoid having to convince the public that we should amend the Constitution to get rid of Fourth Amendment protections for U.S. citizens, not to worry: You’re not the only one who has gotten a bad feeling about where this is going.
Monitoring Doesn’t Have to Show Probable Cause
Let’s take this a step further.
You are an agent of the U.S. government, conducting a warrantless electronic monitoring of a U.S. person abroad, and that person has a conversation with a U.S. person who is in the United States. Even though the person that you are monitoring isn’t the subject of the investigation, they may now be monitored themselves, without a warrant being obtained. The idea of “electronic surveillance” being defined as only that surveillance conducted within U.S. borders creates a situation where the federal agent doing the monitoring doesn’t have to show probable cause, and is unlikely to concern himself or herself with whether the U.S. person being monitored is an “agent of a foreign power,” since the monitoring action isn’t defined as “electronic surveillance” and will never be accounted for or controlled through a warrant (including a “blanket” warrant) or any other means.
Under the law as it previously existed, in certain circumstances the U.S. government did not have to have a warrant to monitor a U.S. citizen abroad if, for example, the U.S. citizen was an “agent of a foreign power.” This has long been considered (and accepted as) the practical equivalent of an exception to the Fourth Amendment, the reason being, if U.S. intelligence activities resulted in acquisition of information about the activities of “foreign powers” which indicated that a U.S. citizen was acting under the influence and possible direction of the foreign power, that U.S. citizen could be monitored as an “agent of a foreign power.” This was simple enough to show, given that one example of a “foreign power” was defined as “a group engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor,” and one example of what it means to be an “agent of a foreign power” under existing law is any person (including U.S. citizens) that “knowingly engages in clandestine intelligence gathering activities for or on behalf of a foreign power, which activities involve or may involve a violation of the criminal statutes of the United States.”
Additionally, under laws and directives (including special intelligence directives known as U.S. Signal Intelligence directives, or USSIDs) existing in years previous to Congress’s adoption of the Protect America Act of 2007, the inadvertent or unavoidable monitoring of a U.S. citizen who was not an “agent of a foreign power” (for example, where monitoring of telephone calls made by a U.S. citizen who is an “agent of a foreign power” resulted in inadvertent monitoring of another U.S. citizen, who is not or could not possibly be an “agent of a foreign power) did not require that the monitoring stop until a warrant could be obtained. Instead, information inadvertently gathered on the citizen who was not the subject of the investigation, would be discarded. Exceptions to the requirement to discard this information were very limited and were focused on circumstances in which crime or threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person might result if the information were not to be retained.
Other exceptions allowing monitoring without a warrant were provided for through USSIDs, which were designed as “common sense” provisions. One example of such exceptions could be seen in USSID 18 of 27 July 1993, where warrants were not obtained when monitoring U.S. citizens in certain situations, because:
“(a) The time required to obtain such approval would result in the loss of significant foreign intelligence and would cause substantial harm to the national security.
(b) A person's life or physical safety is reasonably believed to be in immediate danger.
(c) The physical security of a defense installation or government property is reasonably believed to be in immediate danger.”
Under current law (the Protect America Act of 2007), however, any U.S. person, at any time, and especially if the person is traveling abroad, may be subject to electronic monitoring by an agent of the U.S. government at any time, for any reason, and can reasonably expect that this monitoring would occur without a warrant. Interestingly, the Protect America Act does specifically provide for a certification process which comes close to satisfying the warrant requirement of the Constitution, but in the same breath, states that this certification “is not required to identify the specific facilities, places, premises, or property at which the acquisition of foreign intelligence information will be directed,” and as part of the process required to produce the certification, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General must state that the acquisition of intelligence information “does not constitute electronic surveillance.” Hence, without a description of a place to be searched, and with the legislation’s redefinition of “electronic surveillance” to exclude monitoring occurring outside the United States, the result is that Congress has created a warrantless and unconstitutional program of monitoring of U.S. citizens. Here, under current law, specifically, the Protect America Act of 2007, we enter the realm of what becomes an unreasonable search within the meaning of our Constitution.
The Fourth Amendment is worth memorizing, so I’ll repeat it again here:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Power of the President with Respect to Monitoring of US Citizens
It bears mentioning here that our judicial branch has over the years developed concepts of the Constitutional role of the President with respect to the acquisition of foreign intelligence information.
A good place to start to understand the power of the President with respect to monitoring of U.S. citizens is within existing provisions of U.S. Code ~ our federal law. Title 18 U.S.C. 2511(3) provides as follows: "Nothing contained in this chapter or in Section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. 605, shall limit the constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems necessary to protect the nation against actual or potential attack; or other hostile acts of a foreign power, to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential to the security of the United States or to protect national security information against foreign intelligence activities. . ." A good summary of what is meant by “the constitutional power of the President” can be found in the decision of the Court in United States v. Brown, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, decided August 22, 1973, where the Court discussed this provision of the law as follows:
"The constitutional power of the President is adverted to, although not conferred by, Congress in Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968."
Thus, “taking such measures as (the President) deems necessary" (in the context of the above-cited U.S. Code section), such as the performing of warrantless searches on U.S. citizens, is not an action which the President is allowed to authorize the performance of independently (and certainly not without legislative direction and oversight from) Congress. Nor is such a power conferred to the President by the Constitution. Rather, the scope and scale of what is permissible from a legislative standpoint in this field, must come from Congress, with significant authority given to the President to take measures consistent with our nation’s federal law, but even so, any Presidential or Congressional action in this area must be consistent with the Constitution ~ the supreme law of the land.
To be sure, there was a legal interpretation on the matter in a November 2002 appeals court. The decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which sided with the Administration in dismantling a bureaucratic "wall" limiting cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence officers, noted "the president's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."
But the same court specifically stated that national security interests should not be grounds "to jettison the Fourth Amendment requirements" protecting the rights of Americans against undue searches. And, the court did not implicitly or directly state that the President would have inherent constitutional authority to authorize ongoing warrantless surveillance and "watchlists" for activities of U.S. citizens, who are not acting on behalf of or in connection with a foreign person or an enemy of the state. NO SUCH CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY EXISTS.
When, in a 2002 brief, the Administration’s Attorney General, John D. Ashcroft, said that "the Constitution vests in the President inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional authority," the Administration made that statement and took that position claiming that the doctrine of constitutional avoidance supported the government interpretation of FISA. However, in that same section of the 2002 brief discussing constitutional avoidance, the authors did not indicate expressly or implicitly how, if at all, to distinguish foreign intelligence gathering from that of domestic intelligence gathering. The same Ashcroft brief did acknowledge that on September 24, 2002, Senators Hatch, Thurmond, Kyl, DeWine, Sessions, and McConnell inserted into the Congressional record a statement that the Patriot Act was designed to allow "'our law enforcement and intelligence communities * * * to cooperate fully in protecting our Nation against terrorist attacks,'" and asserting that "[i]t was our intent * * * to change FISA to allow a foreign intelligence surveillance warrant to be obtained even when the primary purpose of the surveillance was the gathering of criminal evidence." This statement alone should be evidence sufficient to indicate that warrantless monitoring of activities of U.S. citizens are totally unnecessary, since the Administration has acknowledged and recognized a Congressional intent within the Patriot Act to allow for situations in which a foreign intelligence surveillance warrant could be readily obtained for a broad range of purposes. Yet the Administration has twisted it in such a way that they would have us believe that we cannot and should not challenge the scope of Presidential authority which this Administration has assumed exists. Congress has, in its passage of the Protect America Act of 2007, unfortunately abdicated its legitimate role and responsibility within our governmental system of checks and balances, and has failed to protect the Constitution against threat from the executive branch of government.
Furthermore, the Administration has acknowledged publicly (and I will quote the Administration's statement here) that "the differences between the FISA and Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2522 are not always of constitutional significance particularly where FISA is applied to U.S. persons who are "agents of a foreign power" under the rubric of international terrorism, 50 U.S.C. § 1801(b)(2)(C) and (E)." It is because of the Administration's acknowlegement of this fact that the President's activities (in his authorizations of a secret warrantless program which was first revealed in late 2005) are in fact as grave and severe Constitutional violations as I and others claim them to be, because so many of the U.S. citizens who have been subject to warrentless monitoring under these illicit Presidential 'authorizations' are not, never have been, and never will be "agents of a foreign power." It is as though they have forgotten that the power of the executive is not that of a king, one not subject to question or reprimand; the Administration has forgotten utterly that the purpose of our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself was to ensure that through a new governmental structure, that the United States would not suffer tyranny. And we, the people of the United States, will not suffer this President's claims to such extraordinary and unlimited powers. This is the equivalent of a tyrant, operating outside of the U.S. Constitution, without regard for our nation’s laws. And he now does so with the consent of Congress, which is equally culpable in this grave offense.
Who is to say that the warrantless activities which the President and Congress have just “authorized” to occur abroad, will not continue here at home, when it is clearly the desire and intent of the Administration to do so?
The White House claimed in 2005 that a broad and sweeping authority to monitor U.S. citizens here and abroad was implicitly granted in the joint Congressional resolution authorizing the use of force passed shortly after 9/11. But in the Washington Post of Dec. 23, 2005, Senator Daschle stated that the Bush administration requested, but was denied, the authority it now claims it was granted. I quote Daschle:
"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused."
If we were to see some sort of justification anywhere for the President's assumptions of what his powers are, it might well be in the Patriot Act. But as you can see from a quick read of Section 1003 of that Act, there is not an amendment to FISA that redefines electronic surveillance in such a way to permit warrantless surveillance of domestic activities of U.S. citizens. That's because without a warrant, such surveillance is explicitly and unquestionably unconstitutional - a violation of the highest law of the land.
Even the Justice Department of the Administration admitted wrongdoing. The Justice Department admitted not long after the warrantless program was uncovered, that the President's eavesdropping program did not comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Along with another wiretapping statute, FISA defines itself as: "the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . may be conducted."
And, finally although NSA activities have been historically defined and directed by Presidential executive order and established SIGINT directives (USSIDs), the courts have ruled (as we have seen with both Truman and Clinton's overturned executive orders) that Presidential executive orders are valid only so long as they are based on the law, or upon the Constitution. (Please see the Supreme Court ruling in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 where Executive Order 10340 from President Harry S. Truman placing all steel mills in the country under federal control was held invalid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution.)
The President asks us to believe that we will be made safe and free by his refusal to follow our Constitution
We have already seen, in recent years, how this will all play out, if we accept the President's argument that we should accept his reasoning without question. A DOD database obtained by NBC News, which was the result of warrantless monitoring of domestic activities of U.S. citizens, included nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that took place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center -- even including a meeting of Quakers in which the Quakers planned counter-recruitment activites (in a manner expressly permitted by law) at a local high school. One “incident” included in the database was a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes, a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The Fort Lauderdale protest was deemed not to be a credible threat and a column in the database concludes: “US group exercising constitutional rights.” Two-hundred and forty-three other incidents in the database were discounted because they had no connection to the Department of Defense — yet they all remained in the database.
In strange and twisted reasoning, the President asks us to believe that we will be made safe and free by his refusal to follow our Constitution. Congress has just accepted and reinforced this reasoning by its passage of the Protect America Act of 2007. This reasoning of Congress and the President is unacceptable. It deconstructs, degrades, and ultimately, puts in danger of destroying the protections provided to us as Americans by our Constitution. In particular, the protections offered to us by Amendments I, IV, V, VI, IX, and X are in danger of being, for all practical purposes, extinguished by the actions of the President and Congress.
I therefore ask that you demand that your elected officials in Congress initiate action to invalidate the President's executive orders (authorizing warrantless monitoring of U.S. citizens), and I ask that you also take action to demand that your elected officials in Congress take legal action to either overturn or modify the Protect America Act of 2007, so that federal agents may utilize new and broader forms of warrants to cover certain types of activities that should be monitored abroad. The Constitution of this country is not a mere document which can be infringed upon at will ~ it is the highest law of the land, and the legal basis for both the freedoms and the system of government we enjoy. Our safety, and the safety of citizens of the world, relies now on our ability to help a wayward Congress understand its role in the protection of Constitutional freedoms and the necessity of acknowledging that, absent a proposal for a Constitutional amendment, it must reverse or modify its recent actions.
Steps to Take to Defend the United States Constitution
1. Identify who your elected officials are by going to the following website:
http://yahoo.capwiz.com/y/dbq/officials/
Once at the website, type in your zip code and hit enter. Start with the “Representatives” category and click on the name you see there. This will take you to a summary page which shows details regarding your Representative, and his or her website.
2. Check and see if your Representative’s last name matches one of those from the list (below) titled, “Representatives voting No on Protect America Act of 2007.”
3. If your Representative’s name matches one of those in the below list, link through to your Representative’s website (as found in step 1 above) and send a comment to them in the manner indicated on their websites. (Most Representatives now prefer to receive e-mails through a form which you fill out on their website, to avoid spam and non-constituent messages.) Your comment should, in part, ask them to initiate legal proceedings through the court system to overturn or modify the unconstitutional Protect America Act of 2007 as well as to overturn the unconstitutional Presidential executive orders allowing warrantless wiretapping, which preceded the Protect America Act legislation.
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boucher
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Castor
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Conyers
Costello
Courtney
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Ellison
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Frank (MA)
Giffords
Gillibrand
Gonzalez
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hinchey
Hirono
Hodes
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kind
Kucinich
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Michaud
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Perlmutter
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sánchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sestak
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Solis
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Sutton
Tauscher
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velázquez
Visclosky
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Yarmuth
4. Using this list, contact your Senator and do the same thing. Check and see first if your Senator is one of those (see list below) who voted no on the Protect America Act. If so, your Senator may be more inclined to hear your request.
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
