the S. Hoyer has asked for an audit of the program before they will reauthorize-WH not complying. Hoyer wanted to know how many times it has been used and GW won't comply?

That should tell them everything they need to know.

Joe Klien is a watercarrying idiot.

Needs to be updated? He's taking this singular basis of the argument from the WH?

Give me a friggin break-the WH never TRIED to comply with FISA-and the fact that so many DOJ officials were ready to resign-should mean a little something to Mr Klein.

Once more I supect more foul "wordplay" with the word FOREGN by the WH-much like enemy combattants and prisoners are the same-but to escape Geneva Convention-they make up thier own language.

Getting back to the word foreign though.Without oversight, none of us knows what it means. I, personally don't think it means intercepting calls outside the country at all,I suspect it means that the info from our servers are rerouted to another country, downloaded and analyzed, and stored-from ALL Americans.

What a powerful corporate fiendly use for the info. Our govt. could sell off the data to third-party companies in, say, marketing too-to make a few bucks off its' work.

Yesterday Glen, someone on another blog brought up something called "Post de-facto laws", saying any immunity to Telecoms would be illegal. Could you explain this law? never heard of it-but you're the legal eagle.

Couldn't "abuse of powers" charges be brought against any Congress member voting in favor of an immunity deal for telcoms. It actually would be a good way to weed out the Bush-dems-Blue Dogs too.

The way I see it-under separation of powers of the 3 Branches-if the Congress is not voting to stop abuse of Presidential powers-the people of the state have every right to have a vote to remove those members who violate the civil rights of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. I believe there is more than one law being broken here-especially since it can be proven this was premeditated before 9-11-so not for the "terrorist" reason the WH wants to claim. Secondly the WH refuses to turn over docs on this illegal program-that is in violation of oversight as well. So if Congress won't do it-they should be voted out-with people put in to office who will.

So people could charge Pelosi, Rockefeller, Hoyer, Emmanuel, Nelson, Lieberman, Feinstein...... with unorthodox abuse of power-the charges Nixon was charged with for wiretapping.

Congress has no right to take away those freedoms in the Bill of Rights-to hand over to a President who has told no one what the program involves in the first place-or the intended targets-or why AT&T was building a building for this program in 2000-before it was announced.

But I find some of the debate about GOP philosophies on here irrelevant to the argument the WH wants to make about spying on its' citizens.

It's not a Burkian or neo debate-it's a debate about a power-grab by the WH V. OUR civil rights.

Was reading an article @ Think Progress about the WH plans to frame this debate to push through FISA. Based on 3 kidknapped soldiers in Iraq-they are going to claim that the FISA measure was necessary to get them back. The failed logic that the WH thinks no one can see-is that it was not FISA that dropped the ball-IT WAS THE WH. Apparently the AG was mia for about 2 hrs of the process, while the WH dragged its' feet on the rest of getting the info to FISA. So, if that's the argument: they got zilch. And to claim it as "quaint" from not being updated since 76 is bogus too, when it's apparent-FISA works fine when followed correctly-it's the WH that doesn't have their shit together.

We saw the failure in communication-many times over the course of this WH. Katrina and how long the response took by the WH. Cheney shooting Whittington in the face...Beside secrecy-it's a failure to communicate-(even with thier own people)

Reading also how many time Verizon gave up telecom info on citizens-hundreds of thousands of times, one has to wonder if, out of this many records, there was really any legitimate threat-if one were to take it by a name by name lists of those who rights were infringed on. My guess is that many on that list were not terrorists. Conyers has asked for the records from the Telecoms-to which they Telecoms are citing "states secrets". A bullshit argument again-since the federal govt. has to respect states' secrets and did not do so by handing over the info to the WH in the first place. Why would the Telecoms not have claimed Executive Privilege? Becaseu GW knew he was violating states secrets, and interstate commerce laws-so by Telecoms claiming states secrets it looks like the WH had no involvement-or else cannot be connected to them if they had claimed Executive Privelege.

I find thier attempts to spin both pathetic and incriminating.

kids of parents with ideologies drilled into kids heads as opposed to free-thought or individual choice.

It's a tribal mentality/ideolgy passed down from generation to generation. (or brainwashing)

This explains why they (the GOP) is so far removed from accepting reality.

These people have probably been living the fear-based propaganda for generations(at their parents hands)-

No wonder they always play the victim card.

They don't know how to think any other way.

Mommy & Daddy have always done the thinking for them-so actually making decisions in life is next to impossible.