(also up at Daily Kos.  full disclosure: I work for Courage)

Bradley Whitford, better known to many of you as Josh Lyman on The West Wing, took time out of filming a movie in Calgary to shoot this video for the Courage Campaign on the importance of opposing retroactive immunity for telecom companies.  Go watch the video and then do as he says, call your Senators.

Telecom immunity is scheduled to be brought up this week, last I heard Thursday.  It is extremely important that all of our Senators hear from us and hold the line against retroactive immunity.

Senator Dodd has promised to filibuster any bill that lets the phone companies off the hook for passing on our private information to the government without a warrant.  But we need 41 votes to sustain the filibuster and we need your help to get us there.

Here are Senator Feinstein’s phone numbers.  Report back on your call here.

202-224-3841 (Washington, DC)

310-914-7300 (Los Angeles)

415-393-0707 (San Francisco)

619-231-9712 (San Diego)

559-485-7430 (Fresno)

Courage Campaign teamed up with CREDO Action (from Working Assets) to send a message out to all of our California members today. (email after the jump)

Dear Julia,

Remember when President Bush looked you in the eye and told you there was no such thing as a warrantless wiretap?

Turns out President Bush was wrong. But Congress has failed to hold him accountable.

Remember when pundit Joe Klein recently told four million TIME magazine readers that Democrats were granting “terrorists the same rights as Americans” by attempting to restore the previous checks and balances provided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)?

Turns out Joe Klein was wrong. But TIME has failed to hold him accountable.

Here’s the good news. It’s not too late to hold President Bush and telecom companies accountable for wiretapping Americans without a warrant and trampling on the Constitution.

The Courage Campaign and CREDO Action (from Working Assets) are teaming up with Bradley Whitford (“Josh Lyman” on The West Wing) to spread the word from coast-to-coast before it’s too late. Brad took time out of a film shoot in Canada to record this special YouTube video for the Courage Campaign. Will you take time out today to support his call-to-action?

Click here to watch Bradley Whitford’s new YouTube video. Forward it to your friends. Then ask Senator Dianne Feinstein to support Senator Chris Dodd’s promise to filibuster any Senate bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom companies that violated our privacy rights:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/filibuster

As Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, said in a commentary on NPR recently:

“You’d think anyone who remembered J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and Nixon’s CIA, the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 — let alone the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution — might be concerned about the government illegally snooping on Americans. But executives at the nation’s biggest telecoms didn’t blink an eye when the NSA, America’s biggest spy agency, came knocking. You want records of domestic phone calls? Sure, help yourself. Emails? Yeah, we got tons — they’re yours.

… (The telecom companies said) they were only following orders. Only following orders? What if the government told telecoms to use their technologies to spy on American bedrooms, or turn over our bank accounts, or our personal photographs, home videos, anything else we store on computers or transmit through cables or over the Internet? The “only following orders” excuse would make telecoms extensions of our spy agencies.”

Now, the telecoms and President Bush want Congress to let them off the hook by granting them amnesty for breaking the law. For violating our privacy. For spying on us. For violating our fundamental constitutional rights as Americans.

It’s time to take a stand. That’s why the Courage Campaign is teaming up with CREDO Action (from Working Assets) to broadcast Bradley Whitford’s YouTube video across America. Together, we are calling on Senator Feinstein to support Senator Dodd’s potential filibuster against retroactive immunity for telecom companies. Will you join us?

http://www.couragecampaign.org/filibuster

This week, a Senate Intelligence Committee bill re-authorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will likely come to the Senate floor. This bill includes amnesty for telecom companies guilty of wiretapping Americans without a warrant.

Why amnesty? As our friends at CREDO Action explain:

“(President) Bush wants retroactive amnesty for the telecom companies to thwart civil liberties lawsuits that threaten to expose his own violations of the original FISA law. If these lawsuits aren’t allowed to go forward, we may never know the extent of the Bush administration’s illegal efforts to spy on American citizens without the required warrants.”

That’s just one reason why Senator Dodd, supported by Senator Russ Feingold and other Senators, is promising a filibuster. However, it takes 40 votes to uphold a filibuster, and Dodd will need every vote he can get — including Senator Feinstein’s support. Without it, the Bush Administration and telecoms may never be forced to reveal the scandalous history behind their sordid spying.

With our Fourth Amendment privacy rights hanging in the balance, there’s no time to waste. That’s why Bradley Whitford and the Courage Campaign filmed this special YouTube video. Courage and CREDO Action (from Working Assets) would like you to watch it, forward it to your friends, and call Senator Feinstein to ask her to support Senator Dodd’s potential filibuster today:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/filibuster

Why is Senator Feinstein’s support for Senator Dodd’s filibuster so important?

It’s not just about standing strong against telecom immunity. It’s about standing strong against President Bush’s “unitary executive” theory of power. Keep in mind that Senator Feinstein’s pivotal Judiciary Committee vote made it possible for Michael Mukasey to become Attorney General, even though Mukasey supports the interpretation of executive branch power that President Bush has used to wiretap and spy — without congressional approval or judicial review.

While Senator Feinstein voted to confirm Attorney General Mukasey, she can still do the right thing on FISA, the law the Attorney General is supposed to enforce.

Does Senator Feinstein have the courage to hold the Bush Administration and telecoms accountable by supporting Senator Dodd’s potential filibuster? Watch the YouTube video from Bradley Whitford and the Courage Campaign today. Then join Courage and CREDO Action (from Working Assets) in taking action:

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

When corporate executives know government orders to spy on our phone calls and emails are illegal, they have a duty stand up for the Constitution and force the Bush Administration to obtain that information through FISA, a minimum level of judicial review. If these telecom companies fail to take responsibility, Americans need the legal option to sue them and — if these huge corporations are found guilty — force them to pay financial damages.

Otherwise, without the threat of serious financial liability, they will spy again. It’s as simple as that.

Thank you for taking action today. And a special thank you to all the Courage Campaign supporters who made Bradley Whitford’s YouTube video possible by responding to our call for financial contributions last Thursday. With your ongoing support, we can hold President Bush and the telecoms accountable.

Rick Jacobs

Chair

P.S. Last week, we asked Art Torres, Chairman of the California Democratic Party, to use his political and moral capital to persuade Senator Feinstein on telecom immunity, since he said it was an issue that was “very important” to him. Even though he represents Democrats across California and may be one of the few individuals who can convince Senator Feinstein to support a filibuster, as of today, he has not responded to your calls for accountability.

While we hope Chairman Torres takes the time to call Senator Feinstein before it’s too late, we can’t wait for him to respond. It’s up to you. Take action now by calling Senator Feinstein to ask her to support Senator Dodd’s filibuster:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/filibuster

You can draw your own conclusions from what went down this weekend in Anaheim.  But I have to call attention to what is being put out there as a growing meme, that DiFi somehow worked with Chris Dodd to “kill” telecom immunity in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week.  Nothing could be further from the truth, and anyone pushing this line is delivering blatant misinformation.

Sen. Feinstein voted AGAINST stripping immunity out of the Title II provisions of the bill.  The eventual vote to report out a bill without immunity was simply a chance to buy time.  As I noted the other day, James Risen’s article in the New York Times nailed this:

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who also opposed Mr. Feingold’s measure, pleaded with Mr. Leahy to defer the immunity issue because she wants more time to consider several compromise proposals.

What happened in the Judiciary Committee was a punt.  There’s going to be a floor fight, and NOTHING is resolved.  DiFi wants to sign on to a bipartisan centrist compromise that probably won’t be a compromise at all.  If and when she does so, we can assess her position on the merits; for now, we can continue to tell her how we feel on the issue (And I hope Chairman Torres along with anyone else concerned about granting legal amnesty to companies who break the law and violate our privacy will continue to do so).  But suggesting that she “led the fight” to kill telecom immunity is an insult to my intelligence.  How can you kill something that’s not dead, and where the so-called leader is actually looking for ways to return it to the bill on the floor?  Try that logic on somebody else.

(Incidentally, the way certain progressive organizations whooped and hollered and jumped in to take credit for DiFi’s vote, which was nothing more than a vote to take pressure off of her, didn’t help matters.)