So we now have the Democratic leadership folding to a president and opposing party that has no popular support. On one of the most important issues of our time. It is quite possible that now that they will be holding the rein of power, they like the idea of being able to listen in on any and all domestic conversations and e-mails. At least then they will be able to see the Repubs e-mails going forward, which they were not able to subpoena in the past. This is a dark day. My own party sells out like yesterdays news. At this stage one must ask what is the defining difference between the parties. Where is the Mr Smith of our generation. It is very very sad indeed. I do not see a solution.

I knew the colonized remark would get a rise outta you. You've been pulling my chain for a while now, I thought I'd tweak you a little. I'm fully aware that only Northern Ireland is still under British rule, but I liked your colorful analysis.

As to running in to folks who look like John McCain, well, aren't we Irish types supposed to hate the Scots? Does that apply to Scots-Irish too? I lose track sometimes.

Hey, as long as he doesn't become president, he hasn't really done the country any more harm than your typical right-winger. I'd sit down and have a pint with him. I'd be sure to ask him why, after his first visit to the, "open air market," in Iraq, when, coincidentally dozens of people he had met and spoken to were killed the next day, he decided it was okay to return for another photo-op. (look it up)

Who knows the workings of the Senate must be crafting means to stall, stave off, avert, delay, table, rewrite, amend, or some how stop the FISA death to our nation, history, and liberty.

This is worth so much more than the election; which still could be won better and truer as the fight settled clearly where we must go and not go as a goverment, a society and as inheritors of genius gifts of freedom and protections not in any way needing to be undermined by stupid lying cowardice when the reverse could win the day.

Keep it up, all.

Camelot's author inspired us once with 'Profiles In Courage.'

'Audacity' would seem the perfect approach to honor that legacy.

Now is the time for all good then to fight for our country.

Just for the record: I enjoy your posts here. You keep everyone on their toes.

Thanks. Compliments here are few and very far between.

You actually benefited from this provision. What if, just speaking hypothetically, you wanted to have phone sex with your boy- or girlfriend who was in Spain on business?

One has to differentiate between a tap installed on a phone here in the US, or in Spain. A tap here requires a warrant. A tap there doesn't.

So. Let's assume there is a tap on my girlfriend's hotel phone. If I call that phone from the US, the tap in Spain picks up my side of the conversation also. Nobody was after me, I just blundered into someone else's inquiry. Do you expect that only one side of the conversation is going to be recorded? I think not.

When crossing our border all sorts of things can be searched without a warrant. Your laptop, luggage, car, and your body cavities. I consider international phone calls fair game under the border search exception.

That's what the new FISA "compromise" bill makes room for, because that bill makes no provision for a meaningful review by a judge of the facts that support such a wiretap. Does that sound okay to you?

Why in the world would a warrant be required for a tap in Spain? Not even Feingold thinks that's legitimate.

Did you approve of Hillary's vote concerning going to war with Iraq? I have heard people use the same excuses for her that are now being offered for Obama on this so-called FISA "compromise," which I prefer to call a sell-out. To excuse Hillary's vote people said that, as a woman, to show weakness on matters of national security would have derailed her political career. (At the time she cast the vote, this may have been true.) Or they said that, as a senator from New York, she had no choice but to show herself as tough on terrorism. Do you buy those excuses?

Oddly enough, you are now offering a similar sort of rationale for Obama's (new) point-of-view on this warrantless eavedropping and the telecom amnesty bill. You are saying that he must do what he has to in order to be elected.

I am curious. Just how do you define a stand upon principle and why do you so disdain it?

@ Renegade Iconoclast:

Where do you find in my previous letter in this thread a statement about how I intend to cast my vote in the fall or whether or not I intend to vote at all? Moreover, your assumption that you must somehow bring everyone into line to vote for Obama is rather silly. This sort of sheepherding is for sheep. I don't BAAAAA. I suggest you nip at someone else's heels. Try some fool who thinks that the only power of the ballot applies to whether or not he likes the candidates, someone who would be swayed by an "I like Ike" sort of button, someone who did not spend the 80s making sure the Libertarian Party ended up on the ballot. I actually ran as a Libertarian write-in candidate for state office in Texas. The more a vote runs with the herd, the less effective it really is.

As always, I will vote my conscience and not at the bidding of some yapping pup.

I am curious as to just what sorts of long distance communications with others do you consider worthy of privacy? If they "cross a border" (which is after all just a line on a map) are no conversations entitled to any sort of constitutional protection?