On the sidewalk of Life a sold-out person is crying.

Weeping. Sobbing. Howling. But ask him/her why?

On the sidewalk of Life, sold-out person's accuse.

The doctor says: You are terminally ill and will die.

So. What does the near-death, dismayed do next?

O me o my~runs via the veins. 0 toxic, a putdown?

I'll get that damn physician back. I'll e-mail @ UT.

I'll call people names and aim to assassinate them.

Character assassination is the most vile depravity!

A question for Glenn, or other lawyers here.

In the section of HR 6304 which attempts to strip state courts of all civil jurisdiction over these wiretaps, we have this culminating clause:

(d) Application- This section shall apply to any investigation, action, or proceeding that is pending on or commenced after the date of the enactment of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.

Is it possible for the current plaintiffs to lodge a suit in state courts before July 8, and so slip out from under these prohibitions? If they could, HR 6304 would surely permit that suit to proceed, presumably on to discovery.

I'm guessing the state court would dismiss, on the grounds that the complaint was already being litigated elsewhere. If so, would it still be possible for the ACLU and EFF to drop the federal suit, and still get an unforbidden action into the works?

Glenn,

You say:

The central problem is that if Democrats embrace the GOP framework of National Security -- that "Strength" means what the GOP says it means -- then that framework gets enforced and perpetuated, and it's a framework within which Democrats can't possibly win, because Republicans will always "out-Strength" Democrats within that framework.

I just want to state explicitly the consequence of this reasoning. If 'Strength' = 'What the GOP wants to do' then when Democrats try to run on the the 'Strength' issue, they tell the voters that the central question is: Which candidate will better support what the GOP wants to do? And if that's the question, Democrats are guaranteed to lose.

This, as much as anything the Republicans did, is why Max Cleland lost his senate race to Saxby Chambliss. He actually used his own campaign money to run ads touting how frequently he voted with President Bush. It's no big surprise that voters decided the Republican candidate was an even better choice on the 'who will vote with the Republicans' issue.

My non-vote does not wind up in McCain's column; it's simply a vote that Obama has lost.

The implication is that you not voting, won't hurt Obama. Of course it will. If enough do it, McCain wins by default. You and others will have damaged Obama to the point McCain can win. Apparently the closeness of the last two Presidential elections has been lost on you. "Doing something" has consequences, but "not doing something" does as well.

The courts have held that all of us have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our phone calls, even when calling outside the country. Do you not agree?

*In a foreign to foreign tap, no warrants are needed, as all have stipulated.
* In US, taps a warrant is definitely needed.
* HOWEVER, in both cases calls going into and out of, are listened to and recorded. No matter if it's a wrong number.

Said in a slightly different manner, it has always been the case that if you call into a tapped phone, in the US, you are listened to. No matter who you are. Why not the same arrangement in a foreign country?

Don't you see the possibility for abuse there? Read some of my other posts for a hypothetical that might change your mind.

Steve, there is nothing in law that can't be turned to an abuse.

And if you're still not convinced, then at least tell me what is so onerous about requiring the government to obtain a warrant under the current FISA scheme for tapping those calls? Enlighten me. -- stevedew

OK. First off, out of thousands of warrant requested, only a few have been denied. Is that because the process is so lax? Perhaps you should consider that the process is so rigorous that by the time an application gets to the FISA court it is polished to near perfection. Here is a shorthand version of the process and the people and agencies that massage each and every application. It's from 1997 but essentially the same as now.

When the FBI is the lead agency for a counterintelligence activity, an application under the FISA has a different route for approval.
(1) The counterintelligence section of the FBI field office develops the facts of the case.
(2) An FBI counterintelligence supervisory agent, located at the headquarters level, is responsible for developing the facts to support the FISA application.
(3) The FBI General Counsel’s Office will then review the application and
(4) obtain the approval and certification of the Director of the FBI.
(5) Afterwards, the OIPR will prepare the final electronic surveillance application to ensure that it meets all statutory requirements.
(6) The Attorney General is the final review and approval authority before presentation to a FISC judge. This process can be very speedy if the installation works with the FBI to ensure that the application contains the most accurate and statutorily required information. http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/sojudge.pdf

Any disapproval from any of the 5 supervisory reviews is enough to change the application or kill it all together. That's what happened to the flying lesson information and the inability to look at Moussaoui's laptop around 9/11. Suffice it to say it's not like TV where warrants are obtainable within the minutes ads run.

The advice he's getting, and apparently beginning to follow, is now the opposite: that he should shed his prior beliefs in favor of the amorphous, fuzzy, conventional GOP-leaning Center, that he should cease to insist on a re-examination of National Security premises and instead live within the GOP framework.

Hey Glenn, are you afraid to speculate as to why this "move to the center", despite all the obvious evidence that it's a losing strategy, is trotted out every national election? Do you really believe that Democratic consultants are simply bad strategists? It seems pretty clear to me that the consultants simply represent the interests of a corporate donor constituency and that constituency demands a "move to the center". It's the same constituency that has a hand in writing Congressional legislation. Now I know it's difficult to write about things that go on between consultant donors and Democrats in secret back door deals, but it's silly to treat their explanations (moving to the center is necessary to win) as if Democrats actually believe that. Democrats continue to go spineless because it's the most pragmatic approach for giving their major donors what they want and throwing their critics into the same they-need-to-get-tough infinite loop they've been stuck in for decades.