Operation Flabbergasted: Let's Watergate Bush

I have posted a link to this diary in the comments of a previous thread, and was getting ready to add a link to this diary as an action item in the sidebar, when I came across this exhange between the author, smintheus, and wander indiana:

wander indiana: I'd like to cross-post this (front-paged) at the ePluribus Media Community site, as well. Saw your comment calling for action in BenGoshi's diary earlier today, and now see this call to action--I'd like to do my part.

smintheus: Yes, please do crosspost it and that goes for anybody who is able to post it, flog it, or send it. Just do it, and if possible post a link back to this site.

There will be another diary Sunday afternoon here, and a third on Monday morning, talking about the actual campaign to contact Senators and journalists.

But for now, it is just a matter of establishing a network to support the campaign once it begins.

So below I am going to reproduce a large piece of the diary, with a link to the rest, so that you all know what this effort is about and can help spread the word. I will also add a link to the sidebar in the "action item" area.

smitheus writes:

This cannot stand. In ordering the NSA to spy secretly on America, George Bush has: overturned United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18, which prohibits domestic spying by the NSA; violated the federal act which created the FISA court to oversee covert domestic investigations; and trampled upon the Fourth Amendment guarantee against warrantless searches. It cannot stand for a day, much less a month while Congress is in recess.

On Friday, when Sen. Specter said he'd make investigating the allegations a top priority in January, it was barely possible to pretend that they might be false. But by Saturday's radio address, when Bush defended his policy and insisted it would continue, we had entered a full-blown constitutional crisis. George Bush would love for Congress to back down from a fight next week, to go home grumbling "Wait until next year."

Operation Flabbergasted We cannot let that happen. We have to ensure that by Monday, all hell has broken loose in D.C.

Every Senator needs to know there'll be jolly hell back home if they don't demand Bush stop it now. The MSM needs to be discussing the `constitutional crisis.' There has to be a plan immediately to make this happen. I've got one.

We know that domestic spying by the NSA is Orwellian. We don't need to wait for panels of experts to declare the obvious, that Bush's policies violate the Fourth Amendment in the most fundamental way. Further, it is clear that the White House is panicking over the implications of this leak, very much as the Reagan White House panicked when the Iran Contra story broke and they thought impeachment might be looming. Bush's radio address manages to be both offensive and defensive at one and the same time (it reminds one of the cornered Richard Nixon).

We also know that significant numbers of Senators and journalists are utterly fed up with the Bush administration's record on civil liberties. Some are positively spoiling for a fight (if you don't believe me, check out the grilling Terry Moran gave Alberto Gonzales about torture on Nightline Thursday). So we also know that it's entirely possible for us, at this moment, to drive this issue home once and for all, if we can mount a worthy campaign.

The only campaign that would be worthy of this issue, in my opinion, will be one that produces the biggest fire-storm that Washington has ever seen. If we do not attempt to take back our country now, then when?

We need both coherent goals and effective methods to make this happen. There is little time to lose. Fortunately, as we've shown in the past with internet-based campaigns, things can be organized extremely quickly if people are willing to do their part.

GOALS

As far as possible, our declared goals must be as clear, straightforward, plausible, and uncontroversial as possible. I have no illusions that it will be easy to achieve these goals; George Bush and friends stonewall almost as a matter of course. But our declared goals must throw into stark relief the illegality of the administration's policies and the nature of the constitutional crisis.

I propose that we ask each U.S. Senator to demand that President Bush:

* immediately reverse this directive on domestic spying

* promise to desist in the future from warrantless spying on Americans

* cooperate fully with a bi-partisan investigation of the policy

* release the texts of the directives along with the legal opinions they were based on

* identify to the Senate all residents of the US who were targets of unconstitutional spying

METHODS

The most important things that need to be done are to

* build an ad hoc network to promote this campaign, to include blogs, activist groups, grassroot organizations, local and state Democratic Party organizations, and some media darlings like Randi Rhodes

* contact Senators to make the above requests

* contact journalists covering Washington to alert them to the campaign and to request full coverage of the constitutional crisis that the President has provoked

I've arranged them in the order that they need to be addressed. We will want to have the main outlines of a network in place by late Sunday, if we are to get the word out far and wide on Monday to inundate Senate offices with calls, emails, and faxes demanding action. We can easily wait until Sunday to begin advancing along the second and third prongs of this strategy. I'll post another diary Sunday afternoon on those subjects (and a third on Monday morning), once this one gets off the ground.

I'm dedicating this first diary to the issue of developing an internet-based network of support for this campaign. When I conceived my "Awaken the Mainstream Media" campaign back in May, it took me days of writing emails and phoning around to create such a network. It worked, but it took more time than we have in this instance. If Kosmopolitans want to see this work, then they'll have to step forward to volunteer to post about this on their own blogs, and to help to contact others who can be roped in to support us.

To reiterate: In this first diary, I'm asking people to step forward to take charge of some part of the bigger problem of getting the word out quickly and connecting people into the effort. You can do that in many ways. For example, start a thread (or a separate diary, linked in a thread) asking people to identify which blogs they'll contact; or which radio hosts; or local grassroots organizations; etc. Identify something that nobody has spoken for, and take charge of it. Above all, we need to make the jump beyond the internet to organized groups with their own membership lists.

I'll have a lot more to say in the second and third diaries about what kinds of arguments and evidence would be useful in calling/writing Senators and journalists.

So who do you know? Who do you read, or listen to? Whose email lists are you on? What local mailing/phone lists can you enlist to get the word out to put pressure on the Senate? What part of this can you help to organize by Sunday afternoon?

Seem like a lot of work? It is. Now keep your eye on the prize.

Click here for the diary at Daily Kos.

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