The Senator Responds

When FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith first sounded the alarm that the courts were ordering the commission to regulate campaign activity on the internet and that weblogs were a potential target for that regulation, one of the steps I took was to dash of a rather hotheaded letter to the senators from Connecticut.

I am writing you as an exercise of my increasingly limited right to freedom of speech. A right that has been grievously abridged by the campaign finance legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. This appalling act of hubris is matched only by the act of the president signing the bill into law and the supreme court upholding it as Constitutional.

Sirs you are elected to enact legislation and to uphold the Constitution of the United States, not to write legislation eroding the Constitutionally protected rights of American citizens. It is claimed that the purpose of your attack on free speech is to counter the corrupting effects of money in the political process. I submit to you that money is not the source of political corruption but merely a perk of ethically corrupt politicians. Instead of attacking the right to free speech and limiting the rights of citizens to participate in the political process you should be enacting laws providing harsh penalties for political corruption.

You will never succeed in removing money from politics and you will never succeed in silencing citizens who wish to be heard. If you want to eliminate corruption in politics, focus your efforts on eliminating corrupt politicians.

I for one will not be silenced in the name of protecting corrupt elected officials.

I sent this via their web sites and quickly got a canned we'll research this and get back to you response from Senator Joseph Leiberman. I knew that I would get some sort of snow job non-committal political spin response. It was just a matter of waiting. Well today the waiting is over. Today Senator Lieberman, research complete responded.

Dear Mr. Macklin:

Thank you for writing to share your concerns about the USA Patriot Act (P.L. 107-56), which Congress passed in October 2001 in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Like virtually all of my Senate colleagues, I supported the Patriot Act in 2001 because I thought it was a comprehensive effort to respond to the new threats our nation faced after September 11. Everything changed on that date, and the tools law enforcement had before then - which in many cases were crafted for a different technological era and a different type of threat - had to be reevaluated to ensure they were appropriate for the era in which we now live. Put simply, in this post-September 11 world, we cannot afford to leave law enforcement - often our most important defense in the war on terrorism - without the tools and resources it needs to do this vital work.

Whatever we must do in the war on terrorism, we absolutely must not dispense with our 225-year-old commitment to civil rights and civil liberties. It is precisely this historic commitment to individual liberty that makes us such a great nation. Security cannot be an excuse to do away with that foundational commitment of our nation's founders.

A number of the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions were authorized temporarily and are set to expire on December 31, 2005. The expiring law enforcement sections of Title II of the USA Patriot Act involve three communications-related aspects of the federal law: wiretapping, stored electronic communications and communication transaction records, and pen registers and trap and trace devices. Congress' reexamination of these provisions has already begun. Before Congress extends those provisions, the Administration must provide clear answers about how it has used the Patriot Act and clear responses to the allegations that it has abused some of the Act's provisions.

Please be assured that I will keep your concerns in mind as Congress continues consideration of any legislation extending these provisions. I will also continue my strong commitment to maintaining the balance between the crucial need for public safety and the equally important need of preserving our civil rights.

My official Senate web site is designed to be an on-line office that provides access to constituent services, Connecticut-specific information, and an abundance of information about what I am working on in the Senate on behalf of Connecticut and the nation. I am also pleased to let you know that I have launched an email news update service through my web site. You can sign up for that service by visiting http://lieberman.senate.gov and clicking on the “Subscribe Email News Updates” button at the bottom of the home page. I hope these are informative and useful.

Thank you again for letting me know your views and concerns. Please contact me if you have any additional questions or comments about our work in Congress.

I want to note for all of you who might be slightly confused at this juncture that I have never written to Senator Lieberman, or any other senator, regarding the patriot act. A search of the archives of Hold The Mayo shows that I have written next to nothing on the topic. I am beginning to suspect that there might be a problem with the senator's research. My guess is there is probably something terribly wrong with whatever peon Joe has sending letters to his constituents. I've read my letter many times and compared it to the response to see if perhaps the response was chosen by and automated system that parsed my letter for certain key words but I just don't see it.

Some human being read my letter and decided to send me the canned Patriot Act letter. I expected a canned response and it would have been o.k. In fact I was looking forward to fisking it well. This is unacceptable. This cannot be allowed to pass without a direct response. Senator Lieberman,

On March 3, 2005 I wrote to you via your web site to express my concerns regarding recent developments in the enforcement of campaign finance reform. As you are no doubt aware U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly struck down the FEC exclusion of internet communications from regulation. The direction this is pointing the FEC is toward an even more egregious violation of the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech than anything previously considered under this legislation.

The McCain/Fiengold Campaign Finance Reform bill, which you voted for in the Senate, is one of the greatest assaults on the Bill of Rights in their history.

When I sent the letter I received an automated response promising that I would be “receiving a response to your concerns as soon as our review and research have been completed.” Today, March 29, I received the promised response. However, I have serious doubts about the care that went into the “review and research.”

The response I received was a carefully crafted letter outlining your position on the Patriot Act and the renewal of expiring provisions in that act.

I understand the demands of your position as U.S. Senator and the efforts required to deal with the volume of correspondence your office receives, but this response is unacceptable. I would greatly appreciate a response detailing your views regarding the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and its abridgment of First Amendment protections of the right to free speech.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 06:08 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment