Bill of Rights Defense Committee’s Voter Guide Cuts Through Election-Year Babble

Contact:
Nancy Talanian, Director
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
media@bordc.org

Northampton, MA - For American voters looking for solutions to their government’s warrantless wiretapping of domestic phone calls, presidential signing statements, and torture of detainees, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) has just issued its 2006 Voter Information Guide. The guide helps voters cut through the maze of inside-the-Beltway doublespeak and political maneuvering to pin down candidates on where they stand and what they will do to resolve key civil liberties issues if they are elected.

The BORDC’s 2006 guide includes

Instructions and a timeline for preparing candidate questionnaires and publicizing the results;
Guidelines for creating opportunities to engage candidates on civil liberties issues;
Sample questions to pose to candidates about the President’s program of electronic surveillance and other privacy issues, government accountability, due process for and treatment of detainees, and more;
Searchable database of incumbents’ voting records on key civil liberties issues.

According to BORDC director Nancy Talanian, “The Bill of Rights has become a political football in Washington, where politicians who are willing to protect their constituents’ civil liberties are tagged as ‘soft on terrorism.’ These tactics are leading the U.S. toward becoming ‘one nation under surveillance,’ and millions of people are rightfully concerned.”

As evidence that the American people recognize the importance of the Bill of Rights and are willing to defend it, Talanian points to more than 400 resolutions passed by local and county governments and eight state legislatures upholding their 85 million residents’ civil liberties. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently became the first local government in the country to pass a resolution opposing the President’s warrantless wiretapping program.

Says Talanian, “People often forget that they hold the power to demand accountability from politicians. Our Voter Information Guide is designed for them—so they can ask questions and get answers with which to make the right choices when they go to the polls this Election Day.”

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is a national nonprofit organization that encourages ordinary people to take an active role in an ongoing national debate about the post-9/11 laws and orders that threaten civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

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Media Advisory:

BORDC’s 2006 Voter Information Guide, http://www.bordc.org/candidates.php
Information on civil liberties resolutions, http://www.bordc.org/list.php?sortAlpha=1
San Francisco resolution calling on President Bush to stop warrantless surveillance of Americans and to follow the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act http://www.bordc.org/involved/sanfranres.pdf