This is my response to the more substantive part of your first response that I said I would get to.

The new targeting swaps the use of the collection point as a criterion for being satisfied to the persons themselves. That is the change that is essential to catch the bad guys you wanted Marjoram. The rest of the bill should have been written around that, to write privacy in that new form. It wasn't, and that was not unintentional.

Btw, the whole thing was very instructive and helpful, which I appreciate. Also btw, Marjoram is a spice as I understand it. But I digress.

Here is where you and I agree wholeheartedly. Firstly, this bill appears to go way beyond where it needed to go. I say appears not just for what you have wrote, but for the embarrassing and corrupt lack of any transparency or public debate or discussion on this issue. Embarrassing because it would seem Americans don't care, and I can guarantee that wouldn't have been the case 30 years ago, and wouldn't be the case today in most Western nations. Certainly not Britain. I should also point out, I would hope I'm not the only one of us who would prefer these bad guys got caught. If someone cares about civil liberties, they should fear a terrorist attack far more than someone ignorant.

But the more important point to highlight, which you have gotten into, is the intent. Indeed, the White House did not want any rollback feature, presumably as you point out to keep the old obsolete minimization procedures in there, presumably so they could more or less do as they please. The question is why. As I said above, were Addington and Cheney wanting to influence any election, or pass on these powers to an Obama administration (as looks set to follow Bush)? You have argued, from what I can tell, that we simply don't know, and that in any case this is ominous. I would agree with that, except to say we do know something about Cheney and Addington. We know that they consider FISA unconstitutional (the whole unitary executive thing). That they both argued vociferously against getting Congressional authorization to invade Iraq (and for signing statements, against torture laws, and basically, against involving the Congress in anything). They did that in spite of the fact that the vote was going to be a slam dunk, that it was politically astute and astute with respect to public approval. So they did it with no upside whatsoever, simply because of their wanton ideology with regard to this unitary executive nonsense. So is it really necessary that their desires here be motivated by wanting to make specific snooping activities legal, or at lease unenforceably illegal? I don't believe that to be the case.

Again and as I said before, the law is bad now, it will be worse if this country goes into a deep economic crisis, as I suspect it is about to. I am merely trying to advance the shades of gray.

Are these people jumping to the conclusion that because the NSA can hear an American in virtual Belarus, it's warrantless wiretapping? To which I say tough noogies because the FISA has no jurisdiction in Belarus.

Or possibly is the objection that because the virtual Belarus is routed through the US, it's equivalent to warrantless wiretaps in the US? To which I say more tough noogies because virtual Belarus is equivalent to real Belarus, just like that while their US embassy may be on DC dirt, it's still officially the sovereign territory of Belarus.

I think these people are jumping to the conclusion that when FISA says the U.S. government can wiretap Americans' international communications without warrants, FISA means that the U.S. government can wiretap Americans' international communications without warrants. FISA has nothing to do with citizens of Belarus, virtual or actual. It is about wiretapping Americans, as the quotation I offered yesterday documented.

You obviously want to defend what FISA does, so I don't know why you don't just stipulate to what it does and then defend it, instead of arguing that what it does is OK because it can be described in a way that makes it look like it's not really doing it. That's a pretty weak defense.

"A whole generation of liberals is now being trained to treat politics as a fight to the death, with no compromise, and little humanity."

Thanks for clearing up your point of view. In your mind, perhaps, these "fights" involve no deaths. That is, tens of thousands of Iraqis are not dying as a result of the distortions used by Bush and his inner circle, such as Tony Snow, to convince a largely ignorant US public that Iraq was a threat to the US. And, of course, and certainly, no big whoop if some people spend the rest of their lives in torturous captivity without trial for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And certainly, when we invade and murder Iranians and make ourselves even more vulnerable to terrorist acts, that's not going to be a big deal either. Certainly nothing worth criticizing people for, especially, if, in the course of events they die months after being involved in covering for all of those things. And certainly, I am not saying these things because Glenn encouraged me to do so. Glenn is a lot smarter and more motivated than me, and doesn't get swept up in the kind of anger engendered by the absolutely horrifying mess the Bush administration and its apologists have made of our country and Iraq. But as for you Shooter, this is obviously just a joke, nothing anyone should get worked up about outside of some good fun on a posting space.

... that Glenn, of all people, should write that he still includes himself among "the vast majority of those who want Obama to win."

So let me ramble on about this a bit. It looks to me like there are few issues, if any, about which Glenn is more passionate than liberty and the rule of law. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it really looks like these issues are right up there among the most important for Glenn, he thinks they are really central to what's going to happen with this country.

And then there is a politician, Obama, who takes a position that is directly opposed to Glenn's, on precisely those issues that Glenn seems to most care about. So Obama stands precisely for those things that Glenn stands against. And then Glenn writes that he includes himself among those who want Obama to win. Huh?

Yes, I know I know, it is vitally important that McCain not ... the lesser of two evils, etc...

But I can't help thinking: Since Obama opposes Glenn, not just on some garden variety issue, but on precisely Glenn's signature issues, wouldn't that mean that Obama is, well, one of Glenn's political _opponents_? Perhaps not, perhaps the FISA issue wasn't _that_ important to Glenn after all, at least by comparison with other things, given the big picture, and so on. But I guess to me Glenn feels like a political ally, and with Obama I really do feel now like I am dealing with a political opponent (I mean someone who opposes me on some issues that I _really_ care about). So I guess I am baffled. Why would a political ally of mine want my political opponent to win?

At any rate, suppose we keep saying this: "Yes, the rule of law is one of the issues I care most about. Yes, I know, he opposes me on this really important issue, so I guess he's my political opponent in some sense. But I want him to win anyway." We should then have no illusion about this: The issues we care about are going to lose, they have in fact already lost. Digby wondered how we can get the next president to govern progressively? The answer is simple: We can't. We don't stand a chance. We might get lucky some time. But we won't exert influence. Not as long as we want those to win who stand against the things that we stand for.

I think it would be a useful exercise to try to articulate at what point of disagreement with Obama you would say: "I do not want Obama to win anymore, I want him to lose." Speaking for myself, I'm past this point now. Of course, I also do not want McCain to win, either. I do want Nader (who has recently been speaking up forcefully for the rule of law) to capture over 10% or so, because this would have a deep and lasting impact on politics in this country. I hope enough people will feel the same way by November.