The 12 steps to restoring the Constitution look great, but this one:

VII. Enact a Law That Regulates the Invocation of Executive Privilege

is probably beyond Congress's power. I think the extent of Executive Privilege is basically whatever the courts say it is, otherwise Congress is encroaching on the legitimate power of the Executive.

I wondered about that too. I found this:

70 See e.g., Executive Order 13233 issued by President Bush on November 1, 2001, which gave current and former presidents and vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records and delay their release indefinitely. It vests former vice presidents, and the heirs or designees of disabled or deceased presidents the authority to assert executive privilege, and expands the scope of claims of privilege. Hearings held by the House Committee on Government Reform in 2002 raised substantial questions as to the constitutionality of the Order and resulted in the reporting of legislation (H.R. 4187) in the 107th Congress that would have nullified the Order and established new processes for presidential claims of privilege and for congressional and public access to presidential records. H.Rept. No. 107-790, 107th Cong. 2nd Sess. (2002). Substantially the same legislation (H.R. 1225) passed the House on March 14, 2007. See H.Rept. 110-44, 110th Cong. 1st Sess. (2007), and was reported out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on June 20, 2007, without amendment and with no written report. See generally, Jonathan Turley, “Presidential Papers and Popular Government: The Convergence of Constitutional and Property Theory in Claims of Ownership and Control of Presidential Records.” 88 Cornell L. Rev. 651, 666-696 (2003). http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RL30319.pdf

So, it looks like (a willing) Congress may have some ability to rein in executive privilege. See also http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1255 and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101202102.html

From the bmaz/emptywheel link Jim White provided: It is my contention that the telcos have just such indemnification agreements with the Administration/government, that we do not know about because they are classified and hidden, that so protect them for any liability and losses resulting from the litigation they are faced with; thus they do not need immunity to protect them from potential liability verdicts, they are already covered.

Why would the telecoms increase their contributions to Rockefeller (and probably others - I didn't look) and actively lobby on FISA if they're already indemnified? Why would they bother?

Mr. Rockefeller received little in the way of contributions from AT&T or Verizon executives before this year, reporting $4,050 from 2002 through 2006. From last March to June, he collected a total of $42,850 from executives at the two companies. The increase was first reported by the online journal Wired, using data compiled by the Web site OpenSecrets.org. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/washington/23nsa.html

And this:

* Charlie Black, a top McCain political adviser, worked for lobbying firm BKSH until March of this year. AT&T paid the firm $120,000 for the first three months of 2008, in part to lobby for the FISA amendments. Black was listed as one of AT&T's lobbyists.

* The influential Wayne Berman, one of McCain's national finance co-chairs, works for Ogilvy, a prestigious lobbying firm which represents AT&T on FISA. Berman was listed in the first quarter of 2008 as having lobbied for the company.

John Green, also from Oglivy, lobbied on wiretap bills and amnesty for AT&T. He now reportedly works as a full-time liaison to Congress for the McCain campaign.

* Dan Coats, a member of the McCain's Justice Advisory Committee, formerly lobbies for Sprint on FISA reform. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/mccains-ties-to.html

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Good Celery! Sublime. Thanks.

My cell phone service is provided by Sprint, my land-line and dsl are provided by Verizon. All (most?) of my other service-provider options also participated in illegal spying or will participate under this not-so-hot amendment. But, I can't cut myself off from these telecoms. Even if it came out that what the telecoms did was illegal, what choice do I have? What choices do any of us have? I don't think the telecoms have to worry too much about what we think of them.

They advertise because they want us to buy more if we already subscribe to them, or so others might switch to their service. I buy what I need, what I can afford, and what is available where I live. I and most others have none or very little choice outside the wiretapped universe, which will be larger if that's possible, once this amendment goes into effect.

This isn't what she said on 7/2:

LIASSON: I think over time, if the violence goes down—

HUME: It has gone down.

LIASSON: Yes, and if it continues to that will change people's opinions.

The majority of the American people still think the war was a mistake. What they're divided on is what to do now, and whether they think the progress is tenuous enough that we have to stay there to maintain it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,375104,00.html

According to cbolt:

A stack of five votes: amendments, cloture, and final passage; has been pushed into Wednesday, July 9th

http://cboldt.blogspot.com/

There is some symbolism in there somewhere -- that the death of Jesse Helms ends up delaying by one day the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law in the United States.

I'll leave it to Little Brother and others to express it.

I kinda wanted to stay in denial a little longer, but yes, that will be fun.

So, a close and literal reading of the paraphrase leads to the inescapable conclusion that Olbermann is actually praising Glenn at KO's own expense, insofar as he's admitting that Glenn is 0.00153846153846154% superior to him vis-à-vis John Dean.

I took it as an added insult to Glenn - Glenn is only 0.00153846153846154% superior to him (KO) relative to Dean. Especially because he said: "I don't know much about Mr. Greenwald and I didn't read his full piece..."

So stoopid.