BORDC's Lobby Day to Stop the PATRIOT Act

February 3, 2010, in Washington, DC

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee, in collaboration with a broad coalition of allies, organized a grassroots lobby day in Washington to oppose the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. The lobby day included a morning briefing with advice on how to talk to your members of Congress from issue experts, meetings with congressional representatives, and an afternoon debrief. If you weren't able to attend, you can still take a moment to sign our letter condemning the PATRIOT Act and calling for civil liberties protections.

Stopping the PATRIOT Act

Since 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act has enabled the US government to intrude on Americans’ privacy and violate our fundamental constitutional rights. And since then, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee has helped lead the struggle for transparency, accountability, and the restoration of civil liberties and the rule of law. That struggle continues in 2010.

With three provisions of the PATRIOT Act set to expire at the end of 2009, the House and Senate rejected a proposal, the JUSTICE Act, that would have added long overdue civil liberties protections to the many controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Other competing bills simply renewed the provisions without consideration for their significant toll on the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans.

Instead of passing any of these bills, Congress voted in December 2009 to renew the expiring provisions for 60 days. Now, with calls emerging to demand even more power to monitor and spy on Americans of all walks of life, we must demand that Congress uphold our Constitution and protect our rights. As the Constitution once again finds itself with few allies in Washington, Congress is about to resuscitate a cornerstone of the domestic surveillance regime and shred what little remains of constitutional privacy.