We can't defend freedom without our legislative branch standing up against the prolonged and unjustifiable erosions of our basic rights.

For several years, Bush has illegally implemented his warrantless eavesdropping program, keeping it secret from most lawmakers (probably yours) for years. When newspapers uncovered information about the illegal spying on Americans, and Congress was reluctantly forced to ask questions, the Bush administration responded by giving incomplete or misleading briefings about that program to Congress. And, the bottom line, Bush and his staff disregarded laws passed by Congress.

Now, it's up to Congress to do something about it. But, will they?

In essence, our very democracy is hanging in the balance. Congress is the arm of government that can save it.

We, the ordinary citizens and patriots, know these reckless assertions of power cannot continue to be tolerated without permanently destroying our Bill of Rights and destroying the rights and liberties that our nation has always depended on for the health of democracy.

We all need to up pressure on Congress.

We need to demand that the House and Senate stop warrantless spying, disavow torture, restore habeas corpus, and shut down Guantanamo prison.

In recent years, President Bush misled Congress and the American people when he said FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) urgently needed to be "modernized."

In fact, FISA has been updated more than 50 times since its enactment in the '70s.

Last month, by passing the Protect America Act, the Democratic leadership caved like sheep to the threats and manipulations of the Bush administration.

The Bush administration used scare tactics and outright lies to push Congress into gutting FISA and expanding the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program, and the Democrats bought it.

Or, rather, they thought they could get us to buy it. But, here's the news...

We don't buy it.

We're angry. We want our rights back.

The bill Congress passed in August contains virtually no protections for ordinary citizens.

In fact, this new bill does not call for an end to the broad-scale snooping in our e-mail and telephone records. It does not call for appropriate court involvement. In fact, it legalizes the previously illegal warrantless wiretapping by Bush.

That bill should never have been called Protect America Act - it should more aptly be named the Spying on Americans Without Restraint Act.

By removing the legislative and judicial branches from the process altogether, the newly passed bill leaves all decisions up to Bush. Bush and his spies are now authorized to make decisions in private and without justification. They think that they can, on their own, do what they want about the collection, mining and use of Americans' private communications. And, they can. Unless Congress puts a stop to it.

Congress should never have allowed that by passing that bill last month.

The Protect America Act, hastily approved by Congress in early August, gives "largely unfettered authority to conduct surveillance on American citizens who were engaged in communications abroad," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., this month.

The vaguely worded law allows the government to conduct electronic surveillance on international communications including phone calls and e-mails to and from the United States, even those involving Americans, without first seeking court approval. Some legal experts say it may go even farther than that, allowing broad surveillance of Americans without court orders.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said that Congress was "stampeded by administration fear mongering and deception into giving away our rights."

Instead of reining in a lawless and power-hungry Bush administration, Congress actually handed Bush and Cheney more power to invade our privacy and ignore our Constitutional rights.

Do we really want this sort of unfettered, unsupervised snooping to continue by the most unpopular and unscrupulous American presidency in modern history?

Do we really want Bush to be able to collect and sort through our e-mails and phone call records without any supervision from a court?

How in the heck have the scales of justice become so lopsided?

How has democracy been so weakened on our watch?

This Congress has proven to be actually sort of spineless in standing up to the Bush Administration. We need to demand that they get their spine back - and quick. Before it's too late.

This recent bill will sunset in six months and, between now and the, the Bush administration will try to scare us into believing that we should be willing to give up our rights to due process and privacy - permanently.

Their scare tactics have already begun. The end game of these scare tactics? They want us to believe that we are so threatened that we will give up our constitutional rights.

No. I won't fall for that. I hope you won't either. This has gone on too long. And, it's wrong.

Congress will be having quiet meetings behind closed doors about this.

That's why we need to speak up.

Leaders in Congress must hear that we will not tolerate their continued abandonment of their responsibility to hold the Executive Branch in check.

It's important that each of us let our senators and congressmen know that no surveillance program should ever be made permanent.

Moreover, Congress (and, by proxy, each of us) needs answers about what surveillance activities have been conducted over the last six years. We need to know exactly what has happened behind that curtain.

Congress (and each of us) need to know exactly how many Americans have had their rights violated in the last five years.

We need to demand that our Congress lives up to its promise to protect and defend our Constitution, starting with immediate fixes to the outrageous FISA legislation that made warrantless NSA spying on Americans legal.

There has never been a more urgent need to preserve fundamental privacy protections and our system of checks and balances than the need we face today, as illegal government spying, provisions of the Patriot Act and government-sponsored torture programs transcend the bounds of law and our most treasured values in the name of national security.

Please contact your senators and representatives and tell them that you don't trust the White House with these kind of broad spying powers. Explain to them that this has nothing to do with political parties or partisanship. Tell them that you don't want any President to amass that much power, regardless of party affiliation.

Tell them that you want answers about what surveillance activities have been conducted over the last six years and how many Americans have had their rights violated. Tell them that you expect them to uphold and protect your rights and the U.S. constitution.

Say that you are no longer willing to be subjected to scare tactics, gloss-overs, or empty promises. You want action and you want it fast.

Let them know that you will hold them accountable.

Make it clear to them that it's time for Congress to stop failing freedom and start defending the Constitution.

Period.