The Democratic congressional "majority" has an absolutely amazing capacity for self abuse. After telling the people they were not going to reauthorize the illegal spying of the Regime after the warrantless spying measure (the so-called "Protect America Act") expired in six months, they put together a bill that makes the most of the changes to FISA semi-permanent! In private the politicians justify their spineless capitulation as not wanting to be seen as "soft" on terror. What about being soft on the Constitution, members? Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration official turned Bush critic, told Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) the Charlatan still claims "inherent constitutional power to flout any law that Congress enacts." But wait here is the best part, the Charlatan tells the sniveling Dems their efforts to pander are not good enough! He knows he can wave the bloody flag in their faces and get even more concessions from them; for example, giving telecoms retroactive immunity for the illegal spying that has already occurred. Just give him a "Hiel" and get it over with, already.
Update: Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced a bill deleting the "blanket" or "basket" warrant provision--in reality no warrant at all since it is not based on a finding of individual probable cause--for intercepting communications that involve American citizens. His bill, the "FISA Modernization Bill of 2007" requires NSA to obtain an individual warrant from the FISA court when the communications to be monitored include an American. It also requires that inadvertently intercepted American communications be destroyed. Surveillance of foreigner to foreigner communications are unaffected. An ACLU representative said that Holt's bill is better than the RESTORE bill introduced by Democratic leadership because it "does nothing to impede government agencies working to keep us safe, and does everything to restore the rights disregarded by the Protect America Act...it is a direct and constitutional answer". Tell your representative to support Rush Holt's bill.