It is truly dizzying how abruptly and violently our Democratic Congress allows itself to be molested by this administration, yet again. Sen. Feingold said it best when he made the unremarkable but sadly necessary observation that Congress makes the laws, not the President.

I love the Balkinization blog because it is such a reliable way to get an accurate and digestible summary of the latest legislation and legal developments. Lederman is right: the current Senate bill would exempt from FISA court order requirements intercepts of conversations "directed at" (undefined) the communications of persons "reasonably believed" to be outside the US. There's a generous sprinkling of the word "reasonable" or "reasonably" throughout the bill, which is the magic word that famously allows lawyers to push the envelope of legality.

Essentially, while the bill would subject these programs to some degree of FISA Court review, the standard of review would be highly deferential to the government. What a surprise. "Good Senate, oh yes, such a good Senate! Sit! Roll over! Recess!"

Apparently we are all of us, "journalists".
Generally speaking, "journalist" encompasses at least seven different major functions: reporting, criticism, commentary, interviewing, investigation, research and analysis.

Every person that has posted anything about anything fits this description, rendering it worthless. This guy on the other hand, WAS a journalist in a dimension neither you nor Glenn will ever know.

Outspoken newsman shot dead in Oakland.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/03/OAKSLAY.TMP

Sometimes you people don't know when to keep your mouths shut, like the idiot "Kitt" that thought "news" was an acronym for north, east, west, and south.

As always William beautifully hits it out of the park.

For myself, I find all of this, even the unpleasant bits, to be part of a very interesting -- and yes, enlightening -- discourse. I would very much hate to see a magisterial sense of what's appropriate cut it off, and I find it significant that Glenn hasn't done so. Whatever your idea is of propriety, Jebbie, there'll be others who don't share it.

It's sort of funny, in an ironic fashion, that some are so concerned that visitors here will be put off by the off-topic meanderings. Bill O'Reilly is being rightly scorched for being an ignorant ass concerning how blogs and internet discussion in general operate. Yet we are so worried that visitors will flee in horror themselves after visiting Salon's blog comment(s) section.

The point runs parallel that if one has any experience on the web, on blogs, with internet discussions generally, the handful of off-topic threads here won't be a problem in the least. To argue otherwise, IMHO is simply making an excuse for wanting a purer environment that quite frankly doesn't exist on the web, in general.

As an aside, Salon as a whole would have to literally stop all comments, period, or go to a more typical moderated - * manual labor intensive and expensive - system if they really felt things were so out of hand in these sections. I doubt Glenn would be able (whether he wants to is another story) to shut down the comments section with the website software as it is presently designed to function.

* based on the premise that Salon would still want a fully-live and instantly updated comments system. Scanning and moderating 1500 to 3000 messages for a 24/7 operation would be a HUGE undertaking.

For the record, I'm one of them.

I guess I am as well ?

I noticed on Balkinization that the previous bill that had been allegedly agreed to by the CIA Director, then rejected by the White House nonetheless, contained a provision subjecting these surveillance programs to Justice Department Inspector General review to ensure that they are being conducted according to the law. This was one of the few good features of that prior version.

I just did a search for the bill passed by the Senate and found no reference to the Inspector General or any oversight of this nature. Anyone else see whether this feature has been left out? This is a very dramatic omission from one version of legislation to the immediate next, to put it mildly.

What I still cannot comprehend, even after all these years of Congress' abdication of its constitutional responsibility, is how the Senate, including several Democrats, could capitulate so swiftly to such a cheap and undemocratic legislative technique - demanding legislation just before recess in order to rescue America from some glaring, impending threat. Are Republicans actually arguing that we need this FISA "fix" to prevent ourselves from being destroyed this summer? Are the Democrats actually buying it?

The bottom line is this and it is not hard to argue (just ask Sen. Feingold): this is not about giving government the tools it needs to protect America, this is about curtailing an already overreaching and unaccountable administration and standing up to its attempts to grab yet more power for itself and away from the courts, the Congress, and the people. FISA is not "out of date" - it was amended after 911, and the administration even turned down further expansions of FISA power. In the very recent wake of our Attorney General's utterly arrogant and deceptive testimony, and the abuses upon abuses of power of this administration, the President expects the Congress to rubber stamp yet another giveaway of power at the expense of our civil liberties?

Yes, he does. And they apparently will.

Sometimes you people don't know when to keep your mouths shut, like the idiot "Kitt" that thought "news" was an acronym for north, east, west, and south.

-- shooter242

We, sometimes. You, never.

The "idiot" quickly acknowledged his error and apologized. You, being a sociopath, are incapable of even considering such a thing. If there is a gene for human decency, you were born without it.

The rampant ego exhibited in the previous posts is normal yet based in bias. Have you twits ever considered the possibility that these Dems voted for the bill because they know something you don't?

You people have been wrong about the data mining, Swift Bank program, Plame, and calls between people overseas yet routed through the US. For that matter you've been wrong about the elections and the 16 words.

Doesn't a significant number of Democrats voting for something that the hated Bush wants, signal in your tiny little one-track minds, that something legitimate is transpiring?

This is just another example of how hatred can blind the mind.