At first, that's what I thought the headline said.

And, with a few exceptions, the House & Senate Democrats might as well have taken the time off to go bowling for all the good they did standing up for the 4th Amendment.

I'm sure Russ Feingold will try to lay the case out to Obama in January if Obama is elected. I'm just extrememly doubtful that any government that has given itself power will be giving it back. And Obama was perfectly willing to see most of this bill passed. Why give that up? Honestly, let's start naming the Presidents/Administrations/Politicians that, without being forced, in American history, said "I've been given this power by the Congress or the courts but gee, I think it's wrong". I mean, Washington gave up power twice willingly and set the precedent, let's come up with one after that....

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i6v1ClX_Cw0Ug1PdXvJaANAaSG_QD91R6HEG0

Now I'm even more fearful. Poor Israel!

I dare say you didn't even bother to read 50 USC Section 1802(a)(1) (otherwise referred to as "FISA" - you know, the actual law in question). Allow me to quote it here, in full for you. The full section is at my sig.

(a)

(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that—

(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at—

(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or

(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;

(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party; and

(C) the proposed minimization procedures with respect to such surveillance meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801 (h) of this title; and

if the Attorney General reports such minimization procedures and any changes thereto to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at least thirty days prior to their effective date, unless the Attorney General determines immediate action is required and notifies the committees immediately of such minimization procedures and the reason for their becoming effective immediately.

After reading this, are you of the opinion that this is about foreign-to-foreign calls?

For bonus points, check out the name of the section. "Electronic surveillance authorization without court order; ..."

How was the honeymoon?

Very nice. Sorry to have to return to reality. We have pictures ... lots of pictures ... no, noooooo, not of that! Shame on you. Fishes. Tube worms (no, nooo, not what you think, shame on you). Stuff like that. I'll try and find a place to post them, but I'll maybe put a few on my blog ASAP.

Wish I'd come back to better news than our Democratic Party acting like ... well, the Democratic Party of the last decade. Glad to see Glenn doing some fantastic columns though, and Feingold acting like we should have had the good sense to nominate him.

Cheers,

Pedinska wears both her socks inside out.

Pedinska wears socks?

I had this vision of her running barefoot through her garden (and nearly stepping on the trowel she forgot when she imbibed too much wine).

I think that's probably the main difference between Iranian thinking and American thinking. While Iran added a missile, we would have just deleted the image of the failed launch. So that's why we should nuke them.

apologies to YKW. (phu quoc) Asian.

Politicians smell like NUOC MAM NHI.

It's the best fish sauce. What of the breath?

The King Crab brand is a wonderful anchovy.

Smear on the fingers, and shake GOPS hands.

Nuoc Mam Nhi is great. On the hands? dirty socks.

Once again, a great read. I just wish the rest of the media would take note. Turning on my TV nowadays is like watching the Stepford Network.

Glenn,

I'm not sure whether you've seen this, but it's a message that arrived in my inbox not long ago from Chris Dodd (my emphasis added):

Yesterday was a sad day for the United States Senate.

It is my hope that the courts will undo the damage done to the Constitution.

But let us stand tall, knowing that by working together we were able to make wiretapping and retroactive immunity part of the national discourse these last number of months.

We came together – all of you, Senator Feingold, bloggers like Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald, organizations like the EFF and ACLU, and untold hundreds of thousands of Americans who simply wanted to make sure that this one, last insult did not happen with ease.

I'm sorry we weren't successful.

I just hope I'm lucky enough to have you by my side in the next fight, whatever that may be.

Thanks for all you've done.

Chris Dodd

I hope you know how much we appreciate your efforts.

I'm not sure if I understand what you're getting at. This is what I was referring to and what I believe Rachel Maddow was referring to:

It is important here to recall that there is actually an amendment to FISA that is at least arguably justifiable. Even the original FISA law never required warrants in order to eavesdrop on (a) foreign-to-foreign calls or (b) calls involving a U.S. citizen where the target was a non-citizen outside the U.S. (who just happened to call into the U.S.). But recently, technological developments resulted in such calls, even foreign-foreign calls, being routed through the U.S. via fiber optics, and a FISA court ruled this year that the language of FISA requires warrants for such calls.

Even civil libertarian stalwarts such as Russ Feingold agree that it was never the intent of FISA to require warrants for those categories of calls and that amending FISA strictly to fix that problem is justifiable.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/09/fisa/