Californians: Ashamed of Senator Feinstein's lies on surveillance? Join Us | Hacker News Reader

Californians: Ashamed of Senator Feinstein's lies on surveillance? Join Us

shameonfeinstein.org

211 pointszmanian61 comments

If you really want to get Feinstein's attention, an internet petition, even an incredibly well-written one like TFA, isn't likely to do much. You need to pick up the phone and interact with a human being in her office, making sure that person understands the importance of this issue to you, one of her constituents.

If her staffers start being effectively being DDoSed from doing their jobs by phone calls about NSA surveillance, she will hear about it.

Source: my cousin and his wife were both Senate staffers for a number of years.

My belief is that silly internet petitions such as this are designed to steer people away from more effective techniques.

Not only that, but they also give people the impression that they did something useful and meaningful. So they are doubly dangerous.

I wouldn't be surprised if the page was created by Feinstein's staffers.

Your comments on this subject are less than worthless. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that Feinstein is a cancer on our democracy who needs to go. ANYTHING that raises awareness of her shadiness is better than nothing. Trying to tear down the hard work of activists when you yourself have brought nothing to the table is just pathetic.

Shame on Feinstein and shame on you.

Criticism, disagreement, and debate bring about more awareness on the topic and generally invites people to derive their own thoughts and opinions on the subject. For that you should be thanking him rather than shaming them.

ANYTHING that raises awareness of her shadiness is better than nothing

I disagree. Wasted effort is worse than nothing, it's a net negative. I suggest a Kickstarter to fund a lobbyist.

Yes. If Feinstein is a "cancer on our democracy" why are we bothering with a petition or calling her office? What is that going to accomplish? You think you can talk her into resigning with a petition?

You shoud be spending your energies raising awareness, yes... but with the objective of voting her out of office, not voicing a disagreement with her position.

If you think about it in a results-oriented manner, in order to "vote her out," what is needed is an opponent whose strengths outweigh the forces keeping her in place. Next on the list of possibilities as I see them is to create a force of voice that she must listen to. I don't think an internet petition is as effective here (keep in mind that the vast majority of IPs have zero effect, so the odds are against this one), so the alternative is purchasing enough vocal power to drown out the lobbyists who have her ear and direct her toward unfavorable positions.

An ideological position based on the malleable concept of representative democracy is already on shaky ground, so putting oneself in her place, learning about her motivations, and playing to those will operate the machinery of predictable political action much more efficiently. "Know your enemy" is a better action-plan than "designate an enemy and say the same thing as you would with anybody else."

In other words, calling her a "cancer" isn't enough.

We've evaluated our options for influencing Feinstein's office directly and there is no precedent for a citizen movement causing the Senator to change a publically announced position.

We are trying to adopt a strategy more like the 2nd Amendment groups to discredit and delegitimize.

Are you saying that internet petitions have been effective for specific 2nd Amendment issues? Cite?

If all we were about was building a petition site I'd agree with you. Restore the Fourth SF has already written an SF City Council resolutions, gotten an Apple Shareholder proposal and organized two public protests.

This is just the opening salvo of our efforts to specifically target Senator Feinstein. Tangible public interest gives currency and credibility when talking to the press and other activist groups.

Is there any precedent for online petitions doing anything? Ever? Would be happily surprised to learn of something but to my knowledge they have never done anything.

2nd amendment groups like the NRA use the direct method, not petitions. They send out pre-written postcards for the member to fill out and send in. They also send out contact information for all the member gov't representatives, phone numbers included, and tell them to call.

The grandparent is right. Give people the number to Feinstein's office and tell them to call and say:

1. I live in Feinstein's district

2. I oppose X

3. If Feinstein votes for X, I will vote against her next election.

The call can take less than 1 minute, but her staff will record the comments and present them to Diane.

Ruger actually set up a site where you could put in your zip code and get back your representatives all the way up the tree to the President. Then, if you wanted, they provided a form for entering your information and any personal comments, and would send an email to all your representatives on your behalf.

EFF has a great action site on this issue. https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?a...

I do not agree. The SOPA petition worked. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sopa-petition...)

I suspect the SOPA petition alone was less effective than Google asking users to phone their Congressperson on every single search result page.

So a logistics question then. How many staffers are there for a typical Senator's office?

The fact that there's an "Is this safe" link next to the button for signing the petition is itself a telling indicator of the chilling effects of this sort of surveillance.

A couple of years ago people wouldn't even have imagined the possibility that there'd be consequences from this sort of very low-level, very legitimate, democratic participation.

The organization opposing surveillance is the one putting the button there. Its pure propaganda on their part.

Honestly, if you had to bet, would you bet for or against the following hypothesis?

hypothesis: A significant amount of people nowadays think twice before writing or voting on something that could be interpreted as critical of government surveillance. They fear they will be included in some list and that this may have future negative consequences.

I don't know how you're defining "significant." I don't think its appreciably higher now than it ever was. I think the latest news just validates people who have always been paranoid.

Under Recent Signatures as it is at this moment, I count 29 signatures with names and 24 anonymous or redacted. Looks like quite a few people have concerns about signing the petition and are grateful for the anonymous/redacted options.

That doesn't necessarily mean those concerns are valid, of course, but it suggests that the organization has a good read on people's feelings at the moment.

It is about 30% redacted at the moment. We've done everything reasonable to protect signatory privacy. We hash and discard email. We don't retain log files.

But yes we think this is necessary.

Anyone involved in activism against the national security state needs to do their best to protect their comrades against threat living on the Internet Backbone.

There will be absolutely no consequences.

It can be said unequivocally that the US government will not punish people for signing an online petition. Believe it or not, members of government like to see people getting involved in the political process. Even if said people are actively protesting against the current administration's policies. As they say, negative attention is better than no attention at all.

We live in a culture of political apathy. Most people understand government in terms of caricatures only. Any issue that grabs people's attention can lead to more involvement, which is generally good for everyone. Many of today's political figures, including Barack Obama, John Kerry and Hiliary Clinton got their start by protesting and signing petitions.

The biggest outcome from this NSA kerfluffle might be a new generation with a passion for politics. This could be the Vietnam of our time.

Have you read the accounts of people in Wisconsin having their signature on the "Recall Walker" petition begin retaliated against by state officials? This is the most well-known case, but not the only one.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/scott-walker-with...

In this case, it seems that Walker was nominating someone for a state position, and decided not to after finding that person signed a petition to recall him. That's not exactly being retaliated against by state officials, that's just politics. Of course you're going to appoint people that you like. That why, for thing that matter, we vote directly.

Feinstein beyond reproach. She's probably too old to run again and she just won her election. She's a lame duck with a ton of power. She can take the flak I think with no repercussions.

I also don't think she's lied. She's been open about her position. I don't agree with it, but I don't think she's ever misrepresented herself.

Feinstein's lies to the public come in the form of her "reform" bill which purports to prohibit mass surveillance but actually codifies it into law.

https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?a...

She has also adopted the NSA's deceptive language that collection is not surveillance when she says the NSA is not spying on Americans.

Recalling her is the only option if she doesn't resign from the position of Chief of Senate Intelligence. She's way too dangerous in that position to be left there. No real reform of the NSA will happen with her there. I still remember how disgusted I was with her when she kept asking everyone to just end it with the debate already and just extend FISA Amendments Act until 2017, last year.

A recall will never happen. California is too big of a state, which would make a recall effort too expensive to achieve even a respectable failure, and most people don't care two shits about the NSA. If people are unhappy in California it's the governor who gets recalled, not a senator.

> A recall will never happen.

True.

> California is too big of a state

If the size of California were an issue, it would prevent recalls of the governor, as well; the reason it will never happen has nothing to do with that, it has to do with the fact that US Senators can't be recalled.

She can not be recalled.

The removal of U.S. Representatives or U.S. Senators is governed by the United States Constitution, Article 1, Sec. 5 (2), which states "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member." The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States are removed through the process of "impeachment" which is governed by the United States Constitution.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/recalls/recall.pdf

> Recalling her is the only option

To recall a US Senator, first you have to pass an amendment to the US Constitution to make that possible.

So, its not really an option.

Feinstein has been like this forever, but she's in a seat where the electorate would rather vote for a Democrat that eats babies over a moderate Republican.

California elects republicans statewide all the time. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pete Wilson, a Senator can win too. Not that I would want them to.

> California elects republicans statewide all the time.

Well, California has an unusually large number of separately elected Statewide officers, but for the big three statewide offices (Governor and the two US Senators), "all the time" would be something of an exaggeration. In the last 19 years, Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection as Governor is the only time a Republican has been elected to one of those big-3 statewide offices in a normal election.

> Arnold Schwarzenegger,

Arnold Schwarzenegger was first elected in a recall election which uses different procedures (an open plurality election with no primary to filter the field, with a side-by-side majority vote on the same ballot for actually recalling the incumbent -- more people voted for the incumbent Democrat to be retained than voted for the Republican Schwarzenegger to replace him.)

> Pete Wilson

Pete Wilson -- the last Republican elected Senator from or Governor of California, was last elected Governor 19 years ago. The political landscape has changed a bit since then.

> a Senator can win too.

Pete Wilson did it the last time 25 years ago. Sure, the Republicans could run a candidate that could win, but they haven't shown much propensity to do so.

There are other Democrats out there. She has seniority in the Senate though, which is unfortunately valuable to far too many Californians.

Honestly, I doubt that most of the voters even know what her seniority gets them.

I just moved to CA for the last election, and I voted for her. This was after already sending her mail saying she was doing a bad job. But as much as I didn't want to vote for her, the opponent did not look like a "moderate Republican." Stood for a ton of things I disagreed with. Maybe it's just party lines, but then they should have strayed from those lines if they wanted broader support to capitalize on anti-Feinstein.

> Feinstein has been like this forever, but she's in a seat where the electorate would rather vote for a Democrat that eats babies over a moderate Republican.

Like all Senators, she's elected by the State as a whole; there hasn't been anything like a "moderate Republican" run against Feinstein since she was elected.

Actually Mike Huffington ran against her in 1994 and came within 1% of replacing her with a moderate Republican. I'm glad I voted for him even though I'm a Democrat.

The ONLY way that you can have an impact is by (1) raising money (I'm talking $1000/person), and (2) donating a significant amount of time to working for their challenger.

Go after some of the most ardent supporters of NSA and get them defeated. Once you make an example of a few such politicians, the rest will fall in line. That's what the NRA does, and it works swimmingly for them.

Is anyone weighing in on this in touch woth how california actually votes? It doesn't matter how bad DFi actuallu is, our party voters are too busy protecting you from republicans. i didn't hear one reason in favor of hr last term, the only justification for voting i got was "fioria is terrifying"

Get involved: We organize primarily through our mailing list. http://restorethefourthsf.com/mailinglist/ & Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/RestoretheFourthSF/

Campaigns won't work, be it email or phone. A lot of Californians (and US citizens in general) have been trained to automatically vote for someone with a D (or R) next to the person's name. They've also been trained to apologize for their politicians, buy into whatever they say, and ignore serious issues. Skepticism and criticism only apply to people from the other side, and even then, it's only the easily marketable rhetoric people will repeat.

In California, Feinstein will be re-elected into her grave because of that D next to her name. She could support almost everything George W Bush stood for, just say otherwise, and that D will keep her in office. Want proof? Look at Obama.

Feinstein's husband: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Blum

All the controversies about self-dealing must just be coincidence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Blum#Controversy

Ashamed? No. Her actions are no reflection of my own character or behavior. I've never voted for her. Ashamed is not the right word.

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Lies on surveillance is one if many issues Senator Feinstein is an embarrassment to me. It started with her own self serving nature even as mayor of San Francisco.

Google her stance on gun ownership and the steps she took for her own private interests.

pretty sure her office is around Santa Monica blvd. and Sepulveda IIRC, should anyone want to do protest more physically.

Feinstein consistently opposes the interests of her own Tech industry. She's gotta go.

I'm as unhappy as the next person with regard to Feinstein's track record, but to say she's opposing the interests of her own industry is just Silicon Valley bias. She's a US Senator, not a congresswoman from Palo Alto.

Yes, the tech sector is very large in California but they've largely been apolitical in the past. There are two massive industries who lavish politicians with donations and who Feinstein is representing just fine:

Military and Entertainment.

How many defense contractors from the top-100 list[1] are based in California? How about the world's largest entertainment companies (who would profit immensely from SOPA / PIPA)?

Ignoring these political realities is unhelpful.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_100_Contractors_of_the_U.S....

I didn't read OP's comment as saying Feinstein wasn't serving any industry's interests -- but that she was being actively and passively hostile to the tech sector which comprises a significant part of her constituency.

I'm happy to say I've voted for her opponent in every election where the option was available to me. I suggest everyone living in California do the same, barring her running against a truly ghastly opponent. (But isn't that always the issue...)

Check out the business of her husband before deciding what "her" industry is.

Her and Boxer are terrible senators, just their non incumbents have always been worse. The entire two party system has been failing as they all serve the same interests

It's California. It's a strong blue state. What you need is a primary challenge.

agree but as they say its politics and I don't think anyone in the democratic party would challenge either of them. Both candidates have been enacted and backed crippling legislation to both the industry within the state as well as the country and have done a lot worse in terms of financial gain.

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