The San Francisco Bay Guardian's lead editorial that hit the streets today calls on San Francisco legislators Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein to lead the charge to repeal The Patriot Act.
The timing could not be better.
Feinstein is at the center of the latest national security controversy, criticizing the CIA for spying on her Senate Intelligence Committee staffers as they researched legislation to expose and rein in the CIA's interrogation and torture policies. Apparently, Feinstein doesn't like being subjected to the same kind of blanket NSA surveillance that she's been defending, so perhaps this is a welcome lesson for her.
The editorial continues...
Now is the time for San Francisco's most powerful congressional representatives to represent our values, and those of the rest of civilized world that has condemned US surveillance programs that violate international law and cultivate backdoors and other weaknesses in this country's critical cybersecurity infrastructure.
Not only do these two powerful leaders have the backing of a broad swath of the American people to introduce such a bill, it would help energize the base of the Democractic Party in 2014.
Why?
Obama has already expressed concerns about the Democratic Party losing ground in this year's mid-term election because of apathy among Democratic voters, but a bold break from the imperial presidency of the Bush era could be exactly what the party needs to fire up the base.
Read the entire piece here.
Feinstein, Pelosi, and NSA/CIA spying
San Francisco Bay Guardian 3/18/2014
The line about co-sponsoring such a bill with Rand Paul is a kick.