American Freedom Agenda

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The American Freedom Agenda (AFA) is an American organization, established in March 2007, which represents disaffected conservatives who are demanding the Republican Party return to its traditional mistrust of concentrated government power. It is "a coalition established to restore checks and balances and civil liberties protections under assault by the executive branch." It was founded by Bruce Fein (Chairman), Bob Barr, David Keene and Richard Viguerie.^[1]

The ten points of the pledge are:

No military commissions except on the battlefield.
No evidence extracted by torture or coercion.
No detaining citizens as unlawful enemy combatants.
Restoring Habeas Corpus for suspected alien enemy combatants.
Prohibiting warrantless spying by the National Security Agency in violation of law.
Renouncing Presidential signing statements.
Ending secret government by invoking State Secrets Privilege.
Stopping extraordinary renditions.
Stopping threats to prosecuting journalists under the Espionage Act.
Ending the listing of individuals or organizations as terrorists based on secret evidence.

[edit] Timeline

On March 20, 2007, Ron Paul became the first presidential candidate to sign the American Freedom Agenda Pledge.^[1]^[2] The group labeled presidential candidate Mitt Romney "unfit to serve as president" when he failed to sign the pledge.^[3] Steve Kubby, a former candidate for the Libertarian Party nomination for President, has also signed the pledge.

On October 15th, 2007, Representative Ron Paul introduced House Resolution 3835, the "American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007" before Congress ^[4], which sought to legislate the aims of the American Freedom Agenda. The measure, which has 2 co-sponsors, has had no action on it since November 2, 2007. ^[5]