In January, Congress can be a much safer place for supporting and restoring constitutional protections and investigating government wrongdoing–but only IF it has the grassroots support to push back against an intransigent executive branch. Here at the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, we are eagerly planning our strategies and campaigns for next year. We need your support to help us move forward.

Congress and the courts cannot restore our precious freedoms or the torn fabric of the country without the support of a well-informed public that is committed to our Constitution and the rule of law.

For five years, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee has run a sustained nationwide campaign focused on post-9/11 laws and policies that threaten our freedoms. In community after community, our grassroots action ideas, educational resources, and direct organizing support have transformed concern, outrage, and fear over those laws and policies into a coordinated national movement to restore Bill of Rights protections for every U.S. resident.

So far, grassroots volunteers have mobilized using BORDC’s strategies, direct assistance, and web-based resources to convince eight state legislatures and 401 local and county governments across America to enact resolutions and ordinances upholding the constitutional rights of their 85 million residents. Clearly, Congress is listening: Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold called the resolution effort “a unique chapter in the history of civil liberties in this country.”

There is still much more to do to reach beyond the communities where our grassroots presence is already strong. Your tax-deductible contribution today will support our planned work to expand the grassroots movement over the next three years. BORDC’s plans include the following:

* Regional field campaign. The BORDC will expand our geographic reach by placing full-time organizers in states where organizing to restore civil liberties is most needed. The program will start in 2007 with one new organizer, andwill add at least one additional organizer each year through 2009.

* Documentary films. Beginning in 2007, BORDC will produce a series of 25-minute documentaries that local organizers and supporters can broadcast locally and incorporate into community organizing efforts, on topics such as warrantless wiretapping, the Guantánamo prison, and the PATRIOT Act’s impact on businesses.

* Human Rights Abuse Database. This searchable online database, which is currently under development, will contain hundreds of compelling human accounts that can be used in public hearings and through other media to show concrete evidence that post-9/11 laws and policies have hurt innocent people and are ineffective.

These powerful tools will build and equip the BORDC’s nationwide base to meet the critical challenges ahead.

Join us by supporting our work. If you have already sent your tax-deductible gift, thank you. If you have not, please consider making a one-time donation, becoming a regular contributor, setting up an annuity, or including us in your will. Your support will help to expand the grassroots effort to educate and organize so that we may reclaim the protections guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.

To contribute funds or stock online, visit http://www.bordc.org/donate.php. To subscribe to our free email newsletter, please visit http://www.bordc.org.

Sincerely,

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Nancy Talanian, Director
Hope Marston, West Region Organizer
Paul DeMarco, Acting East Region Organizer
Meredith Gray, Administrator

P.S. Would you like to get involved in your community? There may already be an active BORDC group near you! Our regional organizers can help you get started: contact Hope Marston if you live West of the Mississippi or Paul DeMarco if you live to the East.