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.

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.

I knew if I sent everyone an email with this title you'd just delete it. But the following companies and investment opportunities are now HOT! HOT! HOT!, due to new legislation just passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Bush.

Best of all, when call your broker to buy their stock, you'll get a personalized thank you from your investment choice by email before you get off the phone!

DARPA – projects at least since 1996
Project Genoa – folded into TIA in 2002, begun in 1996-7.
Cognitive Edge (from IBM, british)
IBM (business partner in many of these companies)
IRAHS (Singapore intelligence)
BrightPlanet (deep search company)
BMT Syntek Technologies (Project Genoa) (british military contractor) 1997
Saffron Technologies (ExtremeIntelligence, also Project Genoa 00-02)
TP Systems, Inc. (Poindexter) 1990
Digital Commerce Corp. (business to government services)
SAIC Presearch, Inc. (naval intelligence and data mining)
Narus, Inc. (data mining – the infamous STA 6400)
Factiva (BrightPlanet partner)
Lockheed Martin (business partner, advanced intelligence, Genoa?)
Boeing (comprehensive defense strategies, integration. Genoa?)
BASIS Technology (data-mining Asian, European and Middle Eastern sources)
Convera (business databases, intelligent search, linguistic tools)
ASP Solutions, Inc.
Phoenix Global Intelligence Systems, Inc. (real-time terrorist information)
Klinx (business face of BrightPlanet deep web technology)
BAE Systems (Analytic Triangulation)
MITRE (data mining tools deployed to Iraq)
CISCO (strategic partnership with Narus)

I see the Democrat vote not as a capitulation to Bush, but as a shrewd calculation. (And I think that's a good thing. The Republicans have been outpoliticking them for years, and the Democrats have finally learned to play a shrewder game to counter their Machiavellian tactics.) I think they are simply trying to run out the clock of the Bush administration. 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.

Unrelated thought: much to my own surprise, I am becoming a great admirer of Eisenhower, who warned in his farewell address about the threat of an unchecked military-industrial complex (google his speech - so worth reading). What a prescient, visionary figure - truly an underrated president. He deserves renewed study and appreciation.

We were in a worse fix, arguably, with the Alien and Sedition Acts. We got through that, and we can get through this. Jefferson's letter during that crisis is often quoted, and still true:

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake." --Jefferson's letter to John Tate of Carolina 1798

Have the cowardly congress pass laws that will make all of the administrations previous lawbreaking legal.

It is the same with the illegal alien problem, just have congress make all the illegals legal. Simple, and most perverted.

Our country is now officially dead and there is no more constitutional protections because we have a perverted congress and a perverted administrative branch as well as a perverted judicial branch.

I for one will be totally surprised if this country can last another 3 years.

Good bye Uncle Sam, hello prison camps for anyone that dissents.

Glenn points to the recent election in Montana as proof that the Dems don't have to worry about looking weak for defending the constitution. I'll float another more removed precedent: the Vietnam War. When the Dems started shifting to the left re: Vietnam and taking an anti-war stance they were called weak, commies, in bed w/ the enemy etc. What was the price they paid? 30 years of control over the legislative branch.