We need to to derail this outrage for many reasons. Telecom immunity is, for me, still the big one. And I recently ran across an old story that added context to that issue. As reported by Think Progress back in 2006:

In recent days, AT&T, Bell South and Verizon have all issued statements denying that they’ve handed over phone records to the NSA, as reported by USA today.

There are three possibilities:

1) The USA Today story is inaccurate;

2) The telcos left enough wiggle room in the statements that both the USA Today story and their statements are accurate; or

3) The statements from the telcos are inaccurate.

Ordinarily, a company that conceals their transactions and activities from the public would violate securities law. But an presidential memorandum signed by the President on May 5 allows the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, to authorize a company to conceal activities related to national security. (See 15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A))

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/17/new-executive-order/

In other words, Bush has already authorized the telcos to lie about their FISA violations. That strongly suggests to me that they have in fact done so, and that the web of lies will shock even the most jaded observer once exposed.

And I have to say one more once -- the Republican framing ("Do they or do they not want our intelligence agencies to be listening in on conversations between terrorists in the Middle East who may be plotting to hurt America?") needs to be countered.

We don't need new laws to allow the CIA and NSA to listen when al Qaeda is on the phone. In 2001 they legally intercepted plenty of al Qaeda messages. What we need is a law requiring George Bush to listen when the intelligence community tries to tell him about those messages -- remember "bin Laden determined to attack in U.S."?

I'm much more interested in substance than process, and am sick over the substantive outrage that appears to be virtually inevitable.

But it is also worth noting that the impenetrable procedural thicket that is the Senate rule book has enabled these bootlickers to end-run the manifest wishes of their constituents via a process so convoluted that even avid followers lost the thread. They can claim to do the right thing even as they deliver the real goods to the forces of darkness.

I absolutely love Propagandee's Depends idea. Sending a box to every Blue Dog would probably do some actual good.

Cynic and borderline paranoiac that I am, I have to wonder: are these folks capable of a "false flag" attack on our own soil to make their point?