Want to make a difference on FISA - Need Help

[steven88]

I have been reading the blogs and a lot of people, including me, are frustrated by their efforts to get reasonable responses from their Democratic representatives in Congress as to why they voted for the FISA Warrantless Surrender bill. They get meaningless responses or just get blown off.

I have been trying to think of a way to really get the attention of the Democratic representatives who voted for the FISA Warrantless Surrender bill but I need help with the idea and opinions.

Primarily: Is it worth the effort? Is it legal? Is there a better way?

I am from California and Dianne Feinstein simply says "She had a meeting with the head of national security intelligence, and she believes the threat of a terrorist strike is real enough to warrant the added security measures." WTF? How can she just take the word of a member of the Bush administration, even under oath, which he was not? Sounds like someone just didn’t want to miss her vacation. Now someone might have some chance of influencing a representative who will be up for re-election next year but what about the ones who won’t be, like Dianne Feinstein?
My thought was to see if it was feasible to use the campaign disclosure filings to get the names and addresses of contributors to the Democratic representatives who voted for the FISA Warrantless Surrender bill and see if people would send letters to the contributors asking them to suspend further contributions to the Congressman until FISA had been corrected. (http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/disclosure_data_search.shtml)

Looking into the idea, I have run into some issues. First, the campaign disclosure law does not allow use of the names and addresses for the purpose of soliciting contributions or for commercial purposes. Does asking someone not to contribute fall under these restrictions?? Secondly, I have been able to find the list of contributors to the California members of the House but have not been able to find the same for Dianne Feinstein I don’t know what I am doing wrong.

A quick outline of the idea:
Get listings of contributors for each of Democratic representatives who voted for FISA.
Choose 10 – 30 contributors.
Put together a letter template requesting they not support the Congressman until FISA is corrected: a nice, polite letter first thanking them for their support for the Democratic cause and asking for their continued support regarding FISA.
See if others will send letters to the selected contributors along with copies to the Congressman.
If no response from the Congressman, in say a week, select 10 – 30 more contributors and continue the process.

Comments????

[Jack Bone]

1. Welcome to DU!!

yeah..I like the idea.
I plan to talk w/ my Congressman, that voted for this, later this month.

[robinlynne]

2. I think it is well worth the effort to organize a campaign to wage

against this fisa bill. I personally wouldn't be interested in working with campaign finance, but I think we should be going to the offices of anyone who voted for fisa, in an organized fashion to protest and to speak with them. I think that would be very important and would easily unite several democratic groups including democracy for america, progressive Democrats, etc. I do think ti should be well discussed and planned. the way we speak with our reps needs to be calm and well thought out beforehand so they will HEAR what we have to say.

[steven88]

3. I have tried to contact Dianne Feinstein but no luck

I can't even get a listing of any public appearances she plans to make.

[robinlynne]

4. You can email via her website, and call her offices. but you won't be able to speak with

her personally. still the staffers write down your opinions, not everything you say, but for this or agianst that. they keep a tally of phone calls. At least with enough calls she will know we are not happy.