FYI, from the Liberty Coalition (of which my publication, and the Free Congress Foundation, ACLU, American Conservative Union, Republican Liberty Congress and others are partners).
Dear LC Partners,
Today was a very exciting day for Liberty Coalition. Appearing at Constitution Hall in Washington for an event cosponsored by Liberty Coalition and the American Constitution Society, Al Gore, the former Vice-President, upbraided the Bush Administration for its unprecedented expansion of executive powers. And, following Liberty Coalition’s transpartisan lead, Gore said both Democrats and Republicans in the Congress who signed off on the Bush program of warrantless domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency should explain themselves. Gore also echoed LC’s call for a special counsel and Congressional hearings on NSA domestic spying.
To emphasize the transpartisan nature of the event, former Republican Congressman Bob Barr was set to introduce Gore. Since Barr was busy in New York trying to prevent the United Nations from banning personal ownership of small arms, the introduction was to be done remotely. However, when the video link went down, Liberty Coalition’s National Director Michael Ostrolenk took the stage for a stellar impromptu introduction, touching on how the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness transcend party lines.
We have posted the full text of Mr. Gore’s speech to our website. It was an interesting address that put current abuses in context with history, such has Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and the Lyndon Johnson administration’s lies about the Gulf of Tonkin. You can find the full text here: http://www.libertycoalition.net/gore-speech
If you have RealPlayer, you can paste this address in (Ctrl+O , Ctrl+V) to get C-SPAN’s video archive of Gore’s speech (sadly missing Ostrolenk’s introduction): rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter011606_gore.rm
In Liberty,
—
James Plummer
Policy Director
Liberty Coalition