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My Status with Thought Crime Bill

I wanted to give everyone an update as to where I'm at hearing from my Rep and Senators concerning the Thought Crime Bill S.1959.

 

I had written Ginny Brown-Waite, she responded by asking me to explain which bill I was referring to, I did.....and no word back since.  Still no reply from Sen. Nelson.  I got an email from the site I used to send my emails and received this reply.

 

Thank you for using Congress.org Mail System Message sent to the following recipients: Attorney General Mukasey Representative Brown-Waite Senator Martinez Senator Nelson President 

 

And I did hear back from Sen.  Martinez.....here's his reply.

 

Below is a response to the recent comments I received from you:


Dear Mrs. DuLong:

Thank you for letting me know your concerns regarding the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 1955). I appreciate hearing from you.

Our nation is currently at war with a ruthless enemy who exploits the openness of our free society, has no regard for human life, and is prepared to go to any lengths to harm our people and our allies. It is imperative that we engage in a robust effort to gather intelligence information from suspected terrorists, and that we understand and address the root causes of terrorism to avoid future attacks on the American people. These goals can be accomplished without undermining our Constitutional civil liberties.

As you know, on October 23, 2007, the House of Representatives adopted H.R. 1955 by a 404 to 6 vote. This bill would authorize several measures to analyze and prevent terrorism in our nation, including looking at what other nations have done in this area. Section 899F of this bill explicitly prohibits these efforts from violating the constitutional rights of U.S. Citizens and legal residents to ensure that we remain well within our constitutional framework as we protect our nation.

H.R. 1955 currently awaits consideration by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. My highest priority is to safeguard our homeland. Please know that I will keep your concerns in mind should the full Senate consider the provisions of this bill.

Again, thank you for sharing your views with me. Do not hesitate to contact me with any additional questions or comments you may have. For more information about issues and activities important to Florida, please sign up for my weekly newsletter at http://martinez.senate.gov.

Sincerely,

Mel Martinez
United States Senator

Sounds good, huh?  WRONG!  It's a FORM letter done up to appease those of us that are complaining!  And the reason I know this is because a friend of mine in Florida got the SAME, identical, email!  These damn Senators can't even take the time to address the issues we complain about! Much easier to just blow me off.

 

AND not only that.....wait a sec!  What's this Section 899F?  I sure didn't see that in the bill at all.  Did you?  And I don't know about you......but as for me......ALL of his reply sounds like bull.  Bad enough that the ones I've contacted truly didn't fully read this bill and understand the implications.....but they simply don't care!  So here's my status so far:

 

My Rep doesn't recall which bill I'm talking about and hasn't responded back

The Democratic Senator that "I" voted into office....haven't heard one word from him!

And the Republican Senator from Florida.....his reply above doesn't give ME one ounce of comfort that ANYBODY in Washington is paying ANY attention to US THE PEOPLE!

 

See you here next time...... 

Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 at 06:00AM by Registered CommenterTerri DuLong in | Comments5 Comments

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Reader Comments (5)

Even as a form letter, that was terrible as it's basically trying to justify voting for what any sane person could see is not needed to do undercover work and is apt to lead to abuses. It is a platform for their gushing forth how much they are doing about the issue that isn't the biggest danger at all to the ordinary person. Even if there were terrorists in every community in America, the damage they can do to us is not as great as what we do to ourselves when in the name of fear we give away our own freedoms. Police work could get a lot of what is out there from the locals and the federal agencies already in place, but that isn't what this is about and what that letter said is he is on 'their' side. I am afraid that is true of most of them from the left or the right and it's maddening as well as scary. We just have to vote them all out and keep doing it it, but too many citizens in this country are still thinking their own guy is okay... yeah right!
December 10, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterRain
you and my husband. I wish I were more like that. Now I have written a few of our reps on the Iraq war and I have congratulated Webb on how he stands up against Bush but Martin writes all the time complaining and staying on top of things...which is good. I just can't keep up with everything!
December 10, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterDeana
Terri, I applaud your working this issue with your congressional representatives. It is difficult to be rebuffed with canned responses. Something I learned when working in an advocacy office was that it is often more rewarding to establish connections/relationships with staff in the home district or when you can to vist the office on Capitol Hill. Just like it is easy to send a letter by email, the internet has made it very easy to reply with canned responses. As a constituent, making friends in the district office is key to being heard. Not all the time of course, people being people, but energy well spent.
December 10, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterFaith
Terri, I applaud your working this issue with your congressional representatives. It is difficult to be rebuffed with canned responses. Something I learned when working in an advocacy office was that it is often more rewarding to establish connections/relationships with staff in the home district or when you can to vist the office on Capitol Hill. Just like it is easy to send a letter by email, the internet has made it very easy to reply with canned responses. As a constituent, making friends in the district office is key to being heard. Not all the time of course, people being people, but energy well spent.
December 10, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterFaith
Remember the McCarthy era horror - they were just looking for bad communists who were a threat to our democratic way of life. They ended of blacklisting people and runing their lives for little or no reason. It began as a supposed good idea to protect our freedoms and ended up becoming a hysterical witch hunt that instead took those rights away and left people living in fear of reprisal for speaking their minds. This bill is just a modern version of that same idiotic stupidity.
December 10, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterMaureen

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