From Chapter 2 of

http://fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/fbi-911/index.html

Although the Patriot Act amendments to FISA expressly provided for the consultation and coordination between prosecutors and FBI intelligence investigators, in November 2001, the FISA Court issued an order requiring that the 1995 Procedures [Gorelick's Wall], as revised by Attorney General Reno's January 2000 changes and the August 2001 Thompson memorandum, be applied to all cases before the FISA Court.

In March 2002, the Attorney General issued new guidelines on intelligence sharing procedures that superseded the 1995 Procedures. The 2002 Procedures effectively removed "the wall" between intelligence and criminal investigations. The 2002 Procedures explained that since the Patriot Act allowed FISA to be used for a "significant purpose" rather than the primary purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence, FISA could "be used primarily for a law enforcement purpose, as long as a significant foreign intelligence purpose remain[ed]." (Emphasis in original.)

....

The Department immediately tested the new 2002 Procedures with the FISA Court. In an opinion issued on May 17, 2002, the FISA Court accepted the information-sharing provisions of the new Procedures. However, the FISA Court rejected the Department's position that criminal prosecutors should be permitted to have a significant role in FISA surveillances and searches from start to finish. See In Re All Matters Submitted to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, 218 F, Supp.2d 611 (2002). The Department appealed the Court's ruling to the Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, the appellate court for the FISA Court. This was the first appeal ever to the FISA Court of Review.

The Court of Review rejected the FISA Court's findings, as well as the 1995 Procedures and the "primary purpose standard" that had been applied before the Patriot Act revision. See In Re Sealed Case, 310 F.3d 717 (2002). The Court of Review concluded that the restrictions of the wall imposed by the Department and the FISA Court were never required by FISA or the Constitution [footnote 47].

[footnote 47: The Court of Review noted, "We certainly understand the 1995 Justice Department's effort to avoid difficulty with the FISA court, or other courts; and we have no basis to criticize any organization of the Justice Department that an Attorney General desires." Id at 727n.14]

The Court ruled that FISA permitted the use of intelligence in criminal investigations, and that coordination between criminal prosecutors and intelligence investigators was necessary for the protection of national security. The Court concluded that while the FBI had to certify that the purpose of FISA surveillance was to obtain foreign intelligence information, FISA did not preclude or limit the use of intelligence information in a criminal prosecution. The Court wrote, "[E]ffective counterintelligence, we have learned, requires the wholehearted cooperation of all the government's personnel who can be brought to the task." Id, at 743.

________________________________________

"On August 6, 2001, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson issued a memorandum to the Criminal Division, OIPR, and the FBI regarding the Department's policies governing intelligence sharing and establishing new policy. It stated that the 1995 procedures [Gorelick!] and the additional 2000 procedures remained in effect. The memorandum stated that "the purpose of this memorandum is to restate and clarify certain important requirements imposed by the 1995 procedures and the [January 2000 measures issued in response to the AGRT report] and to establish certain additional requirements".

-------

The Ashcroft DOJ put its sign of approval on the Gorelick wall.

The long answer would be that a whole series of mishaps was behind this result. I had typed them all in, but it exceeds the 1000 word limit.

Feingold says (to my reading) pretty much what he said to Rachel Maddow on Countdown regarding Obama.

http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2008/07/fisa-telecom-immunity-bill-russ-feingold-interview.html

or click on signature.

He does seem to endorse the Accountability Now PAC in a way:

And I'm hoping that a lot of people who run this time, unlike a lot of people who ran in 2006, are held accountable.

He also does say that McCain will be better than Bush, but Obama will be better than McCain.

Any comments?

From The Audacity of Hope, about his first week in Washington, D.C. as senator, Obama writes:

That same week, I happened to run into retiring Senator Zell Miller, the lean, sharp-eyed Georgia Democrat and NRA board member who had gone sour on the Democratic Party, endorsed George Bush, and delivered the blistering keynote address at the Republican National Convention - a no-holds-barred rant against the perfidy of John Kerry and his supposed weakness on national security.

Ours was a brief exchange, filled with unspoken irony - the elderly Southerner on his way out, the young black Northerner on his way in, the contrast that the press had noted in our respective convention speeches. Senator Miller was very gracious and wished me luck with my new job.

Later I would happen upon an excerpt from his book A Deficit of Decency, in which he called my speech at the convention one of the best he'd ever heard, before noting - with what I imagined to be a sly smile - that it may not have been the most effective speech in terms of helping to win an election.

In other words: My guy had lost. Zell Miller's guy had won. That was the hard, cold political reality. Everything else was just sentiment.

(Emphasis added.)

From The Audacity of Hope page 56:

I firmly believe, for example, that since 9/11 we have played fast and loose with constitutional principles in the fight against terrorism. But I acknowledge that even the wisest president and most prudent Congress would struggle to balance the critical demands of our collective security against the equally compelling need to uphold civil liberties.

From The Audacity of Hope, page 68 - talking about the necessity of empathy -

I am obligated to try to see the world through George Bush's eyes, no matter how much I may disagree with him.

---

I'd recommend reading Chapter 4 of Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope. It is a discussion of why the voters don't own their senators.