My simple-minded view: the effect of the new FISA law is zero, that is, it did not enable spying:

1. Illegal spying was occurring.

2. The FISA act made some of it legal.

3. The spying continued, unchanged.

Prediction: the spying will continue unchanged.

Who wins? The Obama admin. They get to claim they stopped violations that started under Bush.

See, it is a good law. Everybody except liberals and progressives gets to feel good.

Anoxia, indeed, but surely not from a plastic bag.

President Obama:

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.

Nothing limits this to CIA employees, low or high level. It appears to cover the whole Bush administration, including those who asked for the advice, those who gave the advice, those who did the dirty deeds, and supervisors who gave the orders to do the dirty deeds. It is a statement that there will be no prosecutions in the US. It is a signal for other countries to proceed.

The president's statement will persist. What Holder said will be forgotten.

For giving a legal opinion? I think the opinions they gave are professionally irresponsible in extreme. They should be disbarred. At the very least they intentionally ignored the international legal obligations that the US signed up for. But what crime do you commit when you give a bad legal opinion? Does it matter if the bad advice was intentional? How hard is that to show in a court?

But as a practical matter, once you given a whole class of criminals an unconditional pass for violating international law, then how likely is it that anyone associated with the crimes is going to be prosecuted?

During the Bush administration, it became clear that the AG was working for the White House (Cheney more than Bush, perhaps) rather than acting as the head of independent justice department working in the interest of the American people. Before getting too optimistic about Holder's ability to carry out prosecutions, one might want to see just how independent Holder is. Based on Obama's statements yesterday, I would guess the answer is "not very independent". If Justice is not independent, anyone who can influence the president can influence the course of justice. Although Intelligence lost a battle yesterday, the war might not be over.

Furthermore, we do not know what deals were cut to make yesterday happen.

It is hard to argue with much of anything you have written. And I am not even a vegetarian, although I guess I should be. It is painful to read comments of people who do not even have the courage to admit that they are denying what their better selves are telling them.

of that paragraph is marvelous. (Thanks to Bern ??? for first pointing it out in a comment yesterday; no not Bernbart). It takes clueless self-justification to a humorous peak. It should be the first recipient of some annual award with some name I am not smart enough to come up with. We need to do better than "The Mike Allen award".

wrote:

I take it you have never actually seen a lion bring down a wildebeeste, have you?

Could you please explain why you think it is OK for you to do something a lion does?

wrote:

What we as humans owe animals, including our prey, is humane treatment.

Which is precisely what they are not getting.

wrote:

Animals have only 2 imperatives - to survive and produce offspring. Nonsensical thinking...

You could not be more wrong. You are denying the results of a lot of good work on animal behavior.

Are you saying that you would eat people if you thought you could get away with it, and found them enjoyable?

wrote: Vegans are bullies.

Actually the ones I know are not. And I doubt that the ones you know are either. But you do your damn best to provoke them, don't you?

...collusion of the democratic members of congress with the Bush administration are starting to surface. Watch the Congress practice "duck and cover" just as we had to back in elementary school.

My understanding of the video is that she claims that the NSA recording has her talking to a member of AIPAC, something she claims that she has every right to do. The interviewer seems to agree with Harman that it was a member of AIPAC as well. That does not seem so clear to me from the CQ story. In fact, my impression is that she was talking to someone whose association with Israel is somewhat more direct. Am I wrong?

wrote:

Uniformed U.S. troops, in WWII, or in 2008, are protected by the Geneva Conventions. As are French, British, Israeli, Egyptian, Chinese or Russian trrops.

Actually, waterboarding is torture, and that has nothing to do with whether or not the Geneva conventions apply. This is not so hard to understand: the US has long defined waterboarding as torture. And so does the rest of the world. It does indeed meet the definition under CAT.

You are implying that we get to treat any captive not covered by the GT as we wish. Wrong, but not surprising.

wrote:

That tradeoff is why I'm going to come down on the side of tribunals. Let's drag it all out there like Cheney said and duke it out. It will benefit conservatives well.

I would not be so sure your heroes will stay out of jail if there are trials. And that jail time will not benefit conservatives. It will, in fact, kill off your political agenda for generations.

wrote: I didn't.

It does not matter what you said. The US cannot snatch people and torture them. Period.