I just got a form letter email from Obama's campaign from my earlier call to their office.

Thank you for contacting Obama for America about the proposed legislation to

give phone companies legal immunity for past wiretapping. Senator Obama holds

strong opposition to this special interest provision is frustrated that the

President and his supporters in Congress continue to push it. This fight is just

one more example of why things in Washington must change.

Senator Obama has consistently opposed this Administration's efforts to use

debates about our national security to expand its own power, whether that was in

regard to the conduct of the Iraq war or its restrictions on our civil liberties

through domestic surveillance programs or suspension of habeas corpus. It is

time to restore oversight and accountability in the FISA program, and rejecting

this unprecedented grant of retroactive immunity is a good place to start.

Giving retroactive immunity to telecom companies is simply wrong. Thankfully,

the most recent effort to pass this legislation at the end of the legislative

year failed. Senator Obama unequivocally opposes granting immunity. Senator

Obama cosponsored Senator Dodd's proposal in order to remove it from the current

FISA bill.

This Administration has put forward a false choice between the liberties we

cherish and the security we demand. When Senator Obama is president, there will

be no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens; no more national security

letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime; no more tracking

citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. Our Constitution

works, and so does the FISA court. By working with Congress and respecting our

courts, Senator Obama will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies

with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without

undermining our Constitution and our freedom.

Thank you again for contacting Obama for America. .

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

I just called my Rep. John Yarmuth to find out if he was still against telecom immunity. His office would not tell me. The man answering the phone in Wash. wanted to get my address so they could mail me a form letter. I told him the vote was tomorrow and that my address wouldn't do either of us much good. I then called the local office and spoke with a woman who also told me that she couldn't say how he was going to vote because they didn't know what would be in the bill. I told her that what we read online was not good.

Now I'm getting nervous. Yarmuth voted against telecom immunity the last time.

@Glenn

If Obama remains missing for much longer, it may be necessary to issue an Amber Alert for him.

That was very good. I laughed.

I'm not sure he's going to do anything on this. Caution being the better part of valor and all...

But he is looking better and better every day.

Some of you kids have a problem when looking at the electoral map.

The cartogram is a better depiction of the real state of affairs:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Carto/Jun19-c.html

It's full of blue!

Which shade of blue? Is it the blue that Hoyer represents?

It's really obscene that Hoyer and his Bluedogs want this FISA/immunity bill passed just before the July 4th recess.

On July 4, 1776, we claimed our independence from Britain and Democracy was born. Just before July 4, 2008, it was cynically taken away from us by a handful of corporate Democrats and Republicans in Congress who insisted that it was a good "compromise".

The Huffington Post has a blog entry on FISA that needs some comments. I hope everyone will take a moment to comment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/19/democrats-side-with-repub_n_108162.html

Johnathan Turley and Keith Olbermann were spot on in their discussion about this awful bill.

"When they saw that we were unified in sending that bill rather than falling for their scare tactics, I think it sent them a message," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "So our leverage was increased because of our Democratic unity in both cases." - Nancy Pelosi

“I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get,” said Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, who led the negotiations. - Roy Blount

I think this about says it all.

"When they saw that we were unified in sending that bill rather than falling for their scare tactics, I think it sent them a message," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "So our leverage was increased because of our Democratic unity in both cases."

“I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get,” said Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, who led the negotiations.

Sen. Russ Feingold, a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, said the deal announced Thursday on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act "is not a compromise. It is a capitulation."

“The lawsuits will be dismissed,” Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican in the House, predicted with confidence

You gotta wonder if the reason for the McClellan hearing today is to draw attention away from the FISA vote.

Rep. Michael Arcuri D. New York speaking on behalf of the FISA bill.

Arcuri thanked Hoyer & Conyers!

According to Conyers the McClellan hearing will recess when the FISA debate starts.

This article from Dow Jones, celebrating that the telecom industry is completely off the hook as a result of this bill.

So much for Pelosi's feeble argument that the telecoms are now "tainted"

This article from Dow Jones, celebrating that the telecom industry is completely off the hook as a result of this bill. - Glenn Greenwald

So much for Nancy Pelosi's utterly ridiculous opinion that the telecoms will now be "tainted" by the compromise bill. The only thing that was tainted was the Congress.