An Open Letter To Senator Obama: Please Vote NO On Telecom Immunity

Senator Obama, you've asked of your supporters to believe not just in your ability to do the same, as concerned and caring American citizens who love our country.

I hear your clarion call, and I believe. I believe in you as a candidate and as a leader. And I believe that the American people, in this crucial time for the future of our country, are coming together to stand up for our freedom.

I believe that the people who support you and who believe in you are speaking loudly and clearly. I believe you will hear them and will uphold your promise to oppose any FISA bill which includes immunity for for the telecommunications companies which unlawfully went along with President George W. Bush's program of warrantless wiretapping of ordinary American citizens.

It is at times like these, with our country on the brink of losing some of the greatest attributes that define us as a nation, that we must step up to the crucial role that destiny has handed us.

This is a defining moment in the history of our country. Do we let ourselves be taken into an age of fear, mistrust, and paranoia, forever feeling that we are being watched and that everyone is a spy? Or do we hold our heads up, unafraid, and as Americans declare that enough is enough?

We don't want any more of the paranoid culture of fear that is seemingly the Bush administration's meager vision of our future. We are tired of being told that as Americans we must mistrust and be afraid.

We must stand, tall and united, against those who seek to turn the United States into a surveillance society. We must stand up and say "NO!" to those who would turn us into a nation of fearful, isolated citizens, fearing each other, fearing the government, fearing the massive technological complex which has been turned to the ignoble end of monitoring our every word in some misguided attempt to provide an illusory security at the very real cost of our highest ideals.

A government which operates on the basic belief that it must keep its citizens silent and fearful through some sort of all-seeing, all-hearing intelligence apparatus is a government which has already destroyed that which it seeks to defend.

If we forsake our highest ideals of liberty in the name of defending ourselves from a foreign enemy which seeks to take our freedom, then we have already handed them the victory which they seek. For in so doing we have indeed allowed them to destroy our greatness and our freedom by intimidating us into doing their work for them.

A proud group of your supporters who believe in your call for hope and a new kind of politics, and who also realize the importance of the FISA telecom immunity issue, has come together and organized themselves on your website. We are among your most loyal and enthusiastic supporters. Our group has already grown to more than 2,000 members in just a couple of days, and it continues to grow as I write this.

Please, Senator Obama, reject the politics of fear on national security, vote against this bill and lead other Democrats to do the same!

A proud supporter,
Steve Elliott
Kingston, WA

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