The anti-telecom-amnesty coalition
An excellent post on the coalition that has formed to fight telecom amnest and the extension of domestic spying. It begins:
The saying goes that “politics makes strange bedfellows,” and this axiom is especially appropriate to describe the new coalition that has formed to fight “telecom amnesty” legislation. So appropriate, in fact, that the group has adopted the phrase into its title.
Several left-of-center bloggers, Ron Paul activists, and the ACLU joined forces recently to wage a multi-phase offense against so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats, several of whom are accused of acquiescing to the Bush Administration’s demands for telecom immunity. At the center of this war lies a new FISA bill reportedly being drafted by Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer — a bill that news reports say will include retroactive immunity to telecom companies that have participated in illegal wiretapping.
Rick Williams is a trial lawyer and was at the forefront of the online activism that formed around presidential candidate Ron Paul; he was part of the driving force behind the multi-million dollar campaign fundraisers that helped propel Paul into the national spotlight. He and his business partner, Trevor Lyman (who engineered the “money bomb” that raised $6 million for the presidential candidate in a 24-hour period), launched Break the Matrix, a social networking site aimed at harnessing the momentum of the massive online Paul movement. In a phone interview yesterday I asked Williams how this coalition formed. …
Read the entire post. Very interesting.
