I'm still travelling, with a lot of obligations, so I still haven't had time to really dig into these statutory issues with the new bill, but from what I understand, Russ Feingold has seen the FISA decision, and does recognize that there is this "gap" -- whether in fact or arguably -- and that there was a fix needed. Without seeing the FISA decision, all we can do is rely upon others who have as to what it says, and Feingold is -- on this issue -- one of the few trustworthy voices.

That, I think, is the basis for the claim that the FISA court ruled that a warrant is required for that narrow category of communications.

CD: I should have been more skeptical about it. I grew up in a time with the old anecdote of Kennedy sending Dean Acheson over to meet Charles de Gaulle to show him airiel photographs of Soviet missiles in Cuba. And they met in de Gaulle's office and de Gaulle said "Take these down. I don't want to see them." And Acheson asked: "why not"? And de Gaulle said: "the word of an American president is good enough for me."

This is how Chris Dodd excuses his gullibility in front of the Bush Administration? That he was lost in a dream about some past that never existed? Sad to say, I believe him. While it is hard to credit that the senior senate democrats are just sleep-walking, this explanation does fit the facts.

So give Bush the surveillance expansion. It's only for 6 months. This buys Democrats 6 months. If there is a domestic terrorist attack within that time period (please, no), Republicans (and Joe Klein) won't be able to pin the blame on weak Democrats. The attack will have happened on the neocon watch, with neocon policies. I really do think that the overarching goal of the Democratic Party at this point has to be to win elections (even if, like sausagemaking, it's not pretty), particularly the presidential race in 2008, so that there isn't the permanent one-party military-industrial rule. When the Democrats are truly in power - which right now they are not - then we can hold their feet to the fire and hope for a wholly reimagined foreign policy that does not rely overly and inappropriately on curtailment of domestic civil liberties.

Oh, I get it! The Dems are only pretending to be spineless wimps as a clever ruse to infiltrate the halls of power. Then when they have everyone believing their are just meek and mild mannered geeks, they whip off the glasses and, behold!, Super Dems! With their hands on the wheel of the Ship of State! And the antidote for kryptonite in their powerful grip. Hooray! We're saved!

Unfortunately, I believe the Dems are much more like the Social Democrats in Germany prior to WWII. Those Dems were waiting for just the right moment to push back against that crass fool, Hitler. Too bad for us all that when the right moment finally came, it was too late.

Your post crystalizes the problem with the Democratic Party very well. But I do agree with you regarding Eisenhower.

Who was that wise man who predicted this for the Democrats? If only I could remember his name.

Democrats, covetous of a majority, recruited conservative candidates and encouraged them to campaign as moderate conservatives. Jim Webb's politics were for many years nearly indistinguishable from Pat Buchanan's, Bobby Casey ran as a Santorum-lite Catholic pro-lifer, etc. And now everybody is surprised that they are cooperating with the Republicans.

A Democratic Party that runs Webb and Casey on one side and Sanders and Rangel on the other is a party that doesn't believe in anything.

When the Democrats are truly in power - which right now they are not - then we can hold their feet to the fire and hope for a wholly reimagined foreign policy that does not rely overly and inappropriately on curtailment of domestic civil liberties.

I'm afraid this is wishful thinking on the level of saying "the surge is working, just give it another six months (Freidman Unit)!"

Color me unconvinced that it's great political strategy to broadcast weakness by capitulating to administration demands to curb civil liberties and endorse its previously illegal behavior right now, on the mere possibility that there will be a terrible attack, and the even more remote possibility that Democrats will not be blamed for it simply because they rolled over on FISA.

If the Democrats' overpaid consultants came up with that strategy, they hardly deserve a job at Wendy's.

Their strategy is to try to wait out the remainder of the term and try to blame Republicans.

Their principle is to win at all costs.

This brings to my mind Michael Scherer's Salon piece about YearlyKos. Something about this Kos/netroots thing sort of creeps me out, and I think it is the sense of watching a political cult acting out to punish those violate Party discipline, in the Stalinist cell sense. This in particular bothered me:

The only candidate who was booed louder than Clinton at Saturday's presidential debate was the unlikely left-winger Dennis Kucinich. He made the mistake of aping one-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who regularly attacked the Democratic leadership as a bunch of sellouts. "Why don't people vote?" Kucinich asked, rhetorically. "It's because they don't think there is much of a difference between the two parties."

The booing immediately drowned Kucinich out. He had committed a cardinal sin, demeaning the Democratic Party before a crowd that works countless unpaid hours a week to make the party stronger. He had also provided, inadvertently, another reason for Clinton to smile. The YearlyKos community may not be her most natural constituency, but it is also unlikely to be her enemy. All she has to do is keep showing it respect.

Orthodoxy and group-think suck.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/08/06/yearlykos/?source=newsletter

The administration's eavesdropping and surveillance programs are the one area where there shouldn't be any question as to the absolute need for 4th Amendment guarantees.

From the beginning, Bush / Cheney haven't wanted the People, or the Congress who represent us, to know the full extent of the wiretap efforts.

The initial secret Executive Order of 2002, which set them in motion and was authored in part by John Yoo, asserted (according to the New York Times December 2005 article which revealed some of them -- and for which attorney Tamm is now being targeted) that presidential authority could create these programs... even if they violated the law, because what the president wanted had the force of law that trumped all others.

Mr Bush asserts Executive Privilege regarding the program, his right to be the sole defining authority for what is legal and what is not -- as he asserts that privilege over anything which threatens his grip, and Cheney's, on power.

If the Congress had stood firm on this latest FISA issue -- and said that the president is not the law, not a king, and that his notion if privilege is just the excuse of a criminal... if they would resist, if they would simply stand up for what was right, then it could be the beginning of the end of the rule of these people.

I'm deeply ashamed of the political party I've supported, since before I could vote (I was walking precincts for Robert Kennedy as a teenager). The Senate and House votes were despicable.

I'll do all I can -- raise money, walk door to door, and work -- to see the sixteen Senators who rolled over for this travesty thrown out on their ears, including my own -- that person hasn't just lost my trust; they've lost my vote.

I'm disgusted, dispirited, and angry.