From an Our America Initiative email blast:

Just when we thought the government’s vacuum cleaner approach to our personal data couldn’t become much more outrageous, the Wall Street Journal uncovered the fact that the Department of Justice has, since 2007, been flying Cessna aircraft over the U.S. to collect our cell phones’ unique registration information.

Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

As always, the government is assuring us that this information is NOT being entered into a database. Rather, they say, they are simply gathering up the entire haystack in order to find a few criminal needles. Right.

The Our America Initiative, along with other civil liberties advocates such as the ACLU, continues to fight for a restoration of the 4th Amendment’s protections. Clearly, that fight is far from over.

Just this week, the U.S. Senate failed to move the USA Freedom Act to a final vote on passage. That legislation, supported by many liberty advocates and organizations, would place some modest restrictions on the government’s mass surveillance — such as Cessnas flying around gathering our cell phone registrations.

While the failure to garner the necessary 60 votes is, in some ways, disappointing, the realities are that the legislation has, over the past several months, been significantly “watered down”, and the likelihood that it would have been approved in the House and ultimately signed into law during the current lame duck session are virtually zero.

The REAL opportunity to breathe life back into the 4th Amendment and some measure of restraint on unwarranted surveillance of American citizens comes next year when the Patriot Act expires and Congress will have to reauthorize it — or not.

My preference is to simply repeal the Patriot Act. But at a minimum, Our America will be fighting for substantive changes to the sections of the law on which the government is basing its legal justification for mass surveillance.

When the Patriot Act is debated, the politicians will cry from the rooftops that our safety and security hinge on allowing the government to sweep up our emails and snag our cell phone data. Our task will be to remind them that this nation was founded on a rejection of such abuses of individual liberty. More important, we must mobilize our grassroots supporters to make that same point to their own Representatives and Senators.

There will be many important policy debates over the next several months. But when it comes to civil liberties, the reauthorization of the Patriot Act is undoubtedly one of the most important — if not THE most important.

Our America’s ranks of supporters across the nation are growing every day, and our effectiveness in fights such as the Patriot Act depends on our capacity to mobilize those supporters when it counts. That is why your financial support is so critical. It takes resources to mount the kind of grassroots campaigns that will bring about real reform, and we must depend on you to insure that we have those resources.

Please go to Our America today and contribute $10, $25, $50, $100 or more so that liberty will be heard by the politicians in Congress. We have the people. We have the tools. All we need is your financial support.

I look forward to hearing from you. Our challenges — and opportunities — are great. With your help, we can win.

Thank you.



Gov. Gary Johnson

Honorary Chairman

P.S. Imagine a televised presidential debate that includes candidates who will actually challenge the need — and constitutional authority — of the government to spy on its own citizens. Go to Our America’s Debate Challenge and help us make that happen!