Stop American Censorship
Internet censorship is going to a vote in the Senate on January 24th (known as PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House). While Senators are in their home states for the January recess, we need to flood their public meetings and offices with our concerns about the bill. Learn More
Nebraska for Internet Freedom: Meeting with Senator Nelson's staff on 1/18, 9:00 AM, in Omaha!
Meeting with Senator Nelson's staff on 1/18, 9:00 AM, in Omaha!
@mmelhus has set up a meeting with a member of Senator Nelson's local staff in Omaha, and needs your support! Post back here, and get in touch with @mmelhus if you can go. Meanwhile, keep trying to set up more meetings! Here's what you need to do:
- Email Jacqueline Miller at scheduler@bennelson.senate.gov to meet with Senator Nelson, who has no public position on PIPA.
- Call (308) 236-7602 to meet with Senator Johanns, who has no public position on PIPA yet.
Be polite and professional, and request a meeting on behalf of Nebraska for Internet Freedom (the folks in this forum) to discuss the PROTECT IP Act and SOPA. Make it clear that you want to meet with the Senator during the January recess, and that you'll be bringing others from your group. Have your calendar open when you call, so you can pick a time that works for you. When finished, post a report-back.
For example: "Hi, my name is ________, I'm with Nebraska for Internet freedom, and I'm calling to request a meeting with Senator _______ during the January recess. The PROTECT IP vote is happening on January 24th, and I wanted the Senator to understand my concerns before the vote happens."
IMPORTANT: If you do get a meeting, post another message. That way others can join you in your meeting. If there's any other specific information we should include in this post, message us and we can add it.
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Comments
I received a reply from Ben Nelson's office. He cannot meet me, but Patrick Leahy will be calling for a time / date. I would love some guidance on what to say to him. Here is the last reply I received today from the Senator's Office:
Mike,
Thank you for your request to meet with Senator Nelson before
January 24th. Unfortunately, Senator Nelson is not immediately
available at this time due to prior scheduling conflicts. However, he would be
more than happy to offer a meeting with Patrick Leahy, Staff Assistant in our
Omaha office. Patrick will be in contact shortly to schedule a convenient
meeting time. Thanks again.
Best,
Alissa
Alissa M. Wilcox
Nebraska State Scheduler
I'll join in wednesday call if work allows it. I did find and print the material on teh sidebar, thank you. I received word from Patrick Leahy today asking me to call to schedule an appointment with him. Response below:
Michael,
Please give me a call at my
office number listed below and we can work out a convenient time for us to go
over the information you wanted to share with Senator Nelson.
Thank you,
Patrick Leahy
Staff Assistant
Nebraska's U.S. Senator Ben
Nelson
11819 Miracle Hills Drive, Suite
205
Omaha, NE 68154
P: (402) 391-3411
I have a meeting scheduled with Patrick Leahy, staff assistant to Sen. Nelson scheduled at 9am Wednesday Jan 18th. Mr. Leahy will give me/us 30-60 minutes, and only asked that if there will be 8 or more people that I give him a leads up so he can reseve the correct amount of space.
He has been very accommodating.
Anyone want to come along?
http://www.facebook.com/events/302427989792999). Thanks!
Nebraska for Internet freedom, and I'm requesting a meeting with
Senator Ben Nelson during the January recess. The PROTECT IP vote is
happening on January 24th, and I wanted the Senator to understand my
concerns before the vote happens."
Thank you for initiating this, and being firm in wanting the meeting to be held soon. Good luck to all those that attend!
I apologize for not responding here sooner! I will check the FB page when I get home and send this out as well.
Anyone who wants to come, feel free to just show up at the Senator's Office tomorrow at 8:45 am. The meeting is for 9am, so that gives us a few minutes to meet and chat before going in.
The Address is 11819 Miracle Hills Dr, suite 205. Address link: http://bennelson.senate.gov/services/offices/omaha.cfm
My cell is four-oh-two, three-one-nine, five-two-one-zero. Ask for Mike!
- Originally posted to AKFIF, but contact info for Alaska politicians has been removed.
http://pastebin.com/mSkB62Fz
Included are
* links to limited, but informative coverage in the media
* links to written coverage of SOPA & PIPA (two may be offline today)
* key points highlighting threats and collateral damage that SOPA & PIPA present
This meeting went well. Myself and I think 5 others showed up and had about an hour with 2 aids from the office. We were given some good advice though, and thought I would pass it on.
The aids told us that what would really perk up the Senator's ears more than our list of well thought out criticisms of the bills details/features/etc, was a list of local companies who were willing to call the office and say "This bill will hurt my business". I called the Greater Omaha chamber of commerce this morning and got started asking around for companies that might be willing to do so. If anyone owns, works at, or knows a company that would be willing to get involved, now is the time. Get them to either call the senator's office, or have them put a message on this page that we have permission to pass along their concerns to the senator.
Thanks for all who showed, I believe the numbers and differeing perspectives helped.
These were our talking points. They were prepared for SOPA, but relate equally as well to PIPA. The section #'s just don't apply.
http://pastebin.com/kWXENbdB
I just got off the phone with Patrick Leahy from the Senator's office, to give him an update on some companies I have spoken with, and he said the Senator has changed his stance from "deliberately neutral", to issuing a statement that he believes the bill has problems that need fixing, and he would support a cloture to discuss the bill. However, the Senator still has not read the bill and is not planning on choosing a "side" because he believes the bill will be going through changes before it actually gets to the floor for discussion. As his aid put it, "why get out in front and make a fuss when it is just going to change anyway? [my paraphrase]". I pointed out that making a fuss is what gets it changed, but we will take what we can get.
His statement is progress though.
For the record, Patrick told me that the ONLY other groups that had contacted the Senator to speak their mind were both pro-PIPA (they were the "City of Omaha" and the "City of Lincoln"), so we 6 this morning were the only constituents who have actually showed up to protest the bill, and the only "organization" who has contacted them as anti-PIPA - period.
Lastly, Patrick wanted to know what our organization's numbers were. He asked how many "friends/likes" the FB event page has, and I honestly couldn't tell him. If you guys want to help out spreading the word to get as many people to like the page as possible, Patrick said it would help us if we could call Friday and say that "x-number of people have joined our FB organization in the last week". Apparently these things matter and are measured for the Senator in briefings.