Great find, EJ - thanks for posting that. There does seem to be something afoot in the House, akin to a preparation to resist any FISA-lawbreaking corporate immunity provision that Rockefeller and his Royalists manage to force through the Senate. A resistance that we can encourage, and hopefully strengthen, by praising and highlighting those who are trying to stand their ground in defense of our Constitution, despite the onslaughts of the authoritarians - like Rockefeller and Cheney - who treat our Constitution and us with such contempt.

That's a great letter from Reps. Dingell, Markey and Stupak. Note, too, that by coming out publicly, in advance with their position, there will no second-guessing about their lobbying in closed-door meetings with the Speaker about this - via press leaks after the fact, as was the case in August for members like John Conyers (who advocated caving on the PAA, per Alterman in Newsweek, but advocated resisting, per Conyers to DemocracyNow!, as we were told after the deed was done).

In addition to emphasizing and focusing on the critical role the House may still play on FISA - led by Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer - I think the place to put pressure before next Tuesday's critical Senate FISA cloture vote is on select members of the Democratic majority in the Senate. To wit, these are the members who caved to their Majority Leader Reid on Friday, in order to force a cloture vote on FISA next Tuesday (though I note that the Republicans may have done this if the Democrats hadn't):

Mr. REID. Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk pursuant to the order relative to S. 2248.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.

[snip]

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on S. 2248, the FISA bill.

Harry Reid, Charles E. Schumer, Sherrod Brown, Daniel K. Akaka, Jeff Bingaman, Thomas R. Carper, Ken Salazar, Sheldon Whitehouse, John D. Rockefeller IV, Richard Durbin, Bill Nelson, Debbie Stabenow, Robert P. Casey, Jr., E. Benjamin Nelson, Evan Bayh, Daniel K. Inouye.

Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture vote occur upon disposition of the remaining amendments pursuant to the previous order and that the mandatory quorum be waived.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=S813&position=all

Unbelievably, Mr. Inouye's career votes #15,003 and #15,004 were attacks on our Constitution - as he voted with a handful of his (least-informed) Democratic colleagues against Russ Feingold's eminently-reasonable but Constitutionally-essential Amendments #3915 and 3913 - amendments intended to do nothing but to try to safeguard the inalienable, and formerly Fourth Amendment-protected privacy rights of Americans. Mr. Inouye, for shame. What a way not to mark such a voting milestone.

But Inouye is but one example of the group - a minority, perhaps, but an ugly one - of authoritarian Democrats who are mixed in with that party in the Senate, as evidenced by their votes. Cobbled together, of course, with juvenile macho posturing types (Pryor, Bayh), corrupt corporate servants (Ben Nelson, et al), and just plain moral cowards. In short, this group - along with Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, Tim Johnson, Blanche Lincoln, and Dianne Feinstein - are the members who we should particularly target - if only to shame and expose them, since presumably they too hold their non-wealthy constituents in complete contempt - prior to Tuesday's cloture vote on FISA.

Remember that the FISA cloture vote will be on a bill that technically no one knows the final composition of, because most amendments have yet to be voted on. However, beyond secret vote-swapping and head-countings done by Reid, to remove the lawbreaking pass for corporations from the underlying Senate Intelligence Committee bill 51 votes will be necessary to pass the Dodd/Feingold amendment. And because we (and the Democrats) know for a fact that the Republican Party in Congress never practices "bipartisanship" if doing so might actually affect an end result or help Democrats to help the country - it appears highly unlikely that 51 votes (or any simple majority) will be reached on that immunity-stripping amendment (with Lieberman's defection and Cheney's tiebreaker, at a minimum). Therefore, it is virtually guaranteed that the final FISA bill on Tuesday, however otherwise amended, will contain lawbreaking immunity for corporations.

In that light, and knowing that fact, these 16 senators put their names to a cloture petition to prevent Chris Dodd from filibustering that bill as part of his principled effort to force his Majority Leader to tell the pompous, arrogant, entitled Mr. Rockefeller that the Senate won't be a party to his despicable Republican-powered efforts to make permanent, and unreviewable by the Judicial Branch, unConstitutional secret government spying on Americans in America:

Harry Reid, Charles E. Schumer, Sherrod Brown, Daniel K. Akaka, Jeff Bingaman, Thomas R. Carper, Ken Salazar, Sheldon Whitehouse, John D. Rockefeller IV, Richard Durbin, Bill Nelson, Debbie Stabenow, Robert P. Casey, Jr., E. Benjamin Nelson, Evan Bayh, Daniel K. Inouye.

We must demand that these Democratic Senators vote no on the FISA cloture vote on Tuesday, to defend against a flagrant attack on our Constitution and its separation of powers. They should stand in solidarity with a true democrat, Chris Dodd. As should the party's two presidential candidates - not just in silence, but loudly and publicly. We can lose the six "Democratic" authoritarians we lost on Feingold's amendments (and may well lose on Dodd/Feingold), and a couple more - but if the Democrats under Harry Reid (allegedly an immunity opponent) can't hold the line at 41 cloture Nays come Tuesday, their party and their Congress deserve to live in the infamy such a result will surely bring, down through the years.