[liberationtech] Rare opportunity around PATRIOT Act reauth - worth scrambling now

[Holmes Wilson]

Hi everyone,

I've been sending this to friends and allies so I figured I’d share with the list, to spread the word.

It's looking actually possible that Congress will fail to reauth section 215 of the PATRIOT Act before the deadline, thanks to a recess next week, the Paul filibuster and other factors. It's starting to feel like it did with Amash, where a near victory is being handed to us and we're going to really kick ourselves if we let it slip through. The challenge is making it clear to the larger network (redditors, tech press, activist, everyone) that there's actually an opportunity right now to pile on and draw some blood. 

Blocking reauthorization would at least be a significant victory in terms of the public debate in the US on surveillance, and there’s a chance it will lead to certain specific surveillance programs (like phone metadata collection) being shut down, potentially permanently. 

If you could spread this around in activist / ally / powerful friends circles, there's a chance to score a significant and once-in-5-years (if that) political victory against the NSA in the next 48 hours. People should push the call number and links below, but also just spread the word that if you care about this now is the time to do something.  

The specific things we need people to do to put pressure on the Senate are:

1) Calls to the Senate, using the handy 1-920-END-4-215

2) Nationwide vigils tonight (meet at sunset!) calling for the sunset of these sections of the PATRIOT Act: https://www.endsurveillance.com/#protest

3) Tweet & retweet. This is actually our best-performing one so far, and I included a few others below. https://twitter.com/fightfortheftr/status/601407939186860032

https://twitter.com/fightfortheftr/status/601114949075763200
https://twitter.com/fightfortheftr/status/601071618438213633
https://twitter.com/fightfortheftr/status/601065107221680129
https://twitter.com/fightfortheftr/status/600754188209893377

Thanks!
--Holmes Wilson
fightforthefuture.org