The Jimi Hendrix Contest Ends Today-- NSA Domestic Spying Doesn't

As you may have read, Blue America extended the Alan Grayson/Jimi Hendrix fundraiser because of the Memorial Day weekend. We'll randomly pick a winner at 3pm (ET)/noon (PT). So you still have a chance to win the very rare and very collectible Jimi Hendrix platinum album for his first release, Are You Experienced? But even if you're not a Hendrix fan-- even if you're a country music fan or a show tunes fan or an opera fan who never heard a single Hendrix lick-- please consider helping Grayson win his reelection bid. There aren't many Members of either party working to protect us from NSA excesses; he's one of them.

A lot of people know Grayson for this speech he gave on the floor of the House, much to the chagrin of Republicans-- and more than a few conservative Democrats:

"The Republicans’ health care plan for America: 'Don’t get sick.' That’s right-- don’t get sick. If you have insurance, don’t get sick; if you don’t have insurance, don’t get sick; if you’re sick, don’t get sick-- just don’t get sick! That’s what the Republicans have in mind for you, America. That’s the Republicans’ health care plan. But I think that the Republicans understand that that plan isn’t always going to work-- it’s not a foolproof plan. So the Republicans have a backup plan, in case you do get sick. If you get sick in America, this is what the Republicans want you to do. If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: 'Die quickly.' That’s right. The Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick."

But Grayson is at work every day on a wide range of priorities that are probably the very same priorities that put you on this mailing list to begin with. I was going to tell this story from the mid-'60s about being in a small, basically bare apartment in Brooklyn Heights with a then barely-known Jimi Hendrix way into the early morning hours and freaking out on police paranoia. But there's not any way to tell the story without painting the both of us as drug freaks. So, I'll just say that the paranoia from 5 decades ago feels a lot stronger and more present today-- and I haven't smoked a joint since 1969. And it isn't just Rand Paul and Justin Amash who are standing up to the Establishment behind this encroaching paranoia. Yes, Grayson:

"The question for the American public is this: do you believe that this is the way it has to be? Do you believe that we must give up our privacy, our liberty, our autonomy-- the very essence of what makes us Americans and human beings-- in order to be safe? My answer is “no.” There is no threat to national security when I call my mother, and there is no reason for the NSA to obtain information about that call-- and every other call we make. If it were up to the NSA, there would be a camera on every street corner, and a meter by every bed. I know that it is possible to preserve both privacy and security, and it’s up to Americans to take back our privacy to make that happen."

Last week Lily Hay Newman reported for Slate that Congress actually had a rare victory over the self-directed authoritarians at the NSA. She starts with the bad news: "The House passed a toothless NSA reform bill." 51 Republicans and 70 Democrats, including Grayson, of course, voted against it, but, tragically, it passed by an overwelming 303-121.

But Grayson did more than just vote against the flawed bill. Miraculously, he managed to add and pass a bipartisan amendment-- the first ever to actually limit the powers of the NSA in a substantive way-- in the Science and Technology Committee that was ultimately part of the bill that passed. Grayson's bill protects encryption standards from NSA tampering. This is the letter Grayson sent his colleagues on the committee that persuaded them-- and, as you know, most are Republicans-- to pass it:

These are serious allegations. NIST [The National Institute of Standards and Technology], which falls solely under the jurisdiction of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, has been given "the mission of developing standards, guidelines, and associated methods and techniques for information systems." To violate that charge in a manner that would deliberately lessen encryption standards, and willfully diminish American citizens' and business' cyber-security, is appalling and warrants a stern response by this Committee. Many businesses, from Facebook to Google, have lamented the NSA's actions in the cyber world; and some, such as Lavabit, have consciously decided to shut their doors rather than continue to comply with the wishes of the NSA. Changes need to be made at NIST to protect its work in the encryption arena.

As Newman explained, "Until now, the NSA has been allowed to influence decisions about encryption standards. And the NSA, presumably, is interested in finding ways to circumvent the standards so it can intercept communications and data that the senders think are secure. The agency even prevailed upon NIST to publish a standard which many in the cryptography community warned had been weakened and probably contained a backdoor for easy NSA access… Internally, NIST has also been working to cleanse itself by eliminating the faulty, NSA-backed encryption component from its standard. And the amendment is an important victory and a good reminder for people who may not think about cryptography every day. Weakened encryption has been one of the NSA's reliable backdoors for collecting data, and the NSA's involvement at NIST was preventing citizens and people worldwide from making informed choices about how to protect their data."

Grayson isn't the only Member of Congress working hard on these issues-- he's just the most successful at it. You can help Blue America make sure the Koch brothers don' t defeat him in November by giving here. Alan is worth it… and more-- for the country we love.