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[Arc]

RING RING RING RING RING RING RING

The Senate amendment to remove retroactive immunity to telecom companies for their warrentless wire-tapping shenanigans has failed today, with 31 votes YEA and 67 votes NAY.

Roll Call - As you can see, Obama properly voted YEA, and Clinton's sorry ass didn't even bother to show up.

Dodd (D-CT), who was leading on stripping out the immunity, needed 51 votes for the amendment to correctly pass, and now would need 40 votes to sustain a filibuster on a conference resolution.

Then onto the House, where the RESTORE Act (an altogether stronger bill) could take another shot at retroactive immunity.

[Arc]

http://www.thankyouhouse.org/ (lulz @ blogspot)

In all the confusion yesterday, between the contempt charges being approved for Miers & Bolton (remember, they never showed up to answer questions about the 2006 U.S. attorney firings), the Tom Lantos memorial service, and the Republicans performing a drama queen walkout tactic during the memorial service, you may have missed that the Protect America Act will expire tomorrow.

No biggie if you overlooked this gargantuan news, as the reporting upon it has been pathetically garbled. The Seminal once again provides a quick & easy rundown.

The fallout is as expected. Bush has a temper tantrum. Republican representatives say booga booga booga some more. And praise is lauded upon the Democrats from anyone who has been bothering to pay attention.

[Thad]

AP (quoted in full as it's very short):

SETBACK FOR PRIVACY ADVOCATES: The Supreme Court, without comment, turned down an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union to let it pursue a lawsuit against the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.

RESPONSE: "It's very disturbing that the president's actions will go unremarked upon by the court," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project.

THE CASE: The court's action underscored the difficulty of mounting a challenge to the eavesdropping, which remains classified and was confirmed by President Bush only after a newspaper article revealed its existence. The ACLU sued on behalf of itself, other lawyers, reporters and scholars, arguing that the program was illegal.

[Mongrel]

Meanwhile, the train keeps on a-rollin'

[Brentai]

I'm doing my part to fight this by having the most banal and uncomfortable conversations in the English language over the telephone.

[McFrugal]

You make international calls?

[Arc]

Meanwhile, the train keeps on a-rollin'

That's a bit of a butchered article. By 'current law', this is meant to indicate previous FISA standards, which have been in place for decades and require warrants.

Newsweek elaborates, with a more heartening outlook on telecoms that are either becoming fidgety or dropping out altogether.

Any traction on killing retroactive immunity doesn't appear to be in the cards this year, as the Newsweek article states that Bush is on record as saying he will veto any bill without immunity.

[Thad]

WaPo:

House Democratic leaders announced yesterday their support for providing some relief to phone companies that have been sued for assisting the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program but reaffirmed their opposition to the legal immunity sought by the administration. The proposal would allow the companies, which face nearly 40 civil lawsuits in a federal court in San Francisco, to defend themselves in secret, in front of a judge but without the plaintiffs. Leaders intend to organize a floor vote on it tomorrow.

Allowing such "ex parte" review of classified evidence is meant to defuse the administration's argument that the companies cannot respond to the lawsuits now without disclosing classified information that would harm national security, and that the companies should, therefore, be immunized.

Am I right to think this is a good thing, or have I merely been a victim the soft bigotry of low expectations?

Prediction: Bush vetoes, Dems punk out and pass his version.

[Mongrel]

Prediction: Bush vetoes, Dems punk out and pass his version.

This is my surprised face.

[TA]

I'm reasonably sure that's unconstitutional.

[Brentai]

I don't get it.  What's your point?

[Mongrel]

That my surprised face is unconstitutional.

[Thad]

...A thought.

Our next President has the power not only to dismantle what's left of the warrantless surveillance program, but also to declassify those pesky bits that are halting prosecution, right?

I'm just hoping Obama doesn't punk out like Ford and decide we need to move on.

[Thad]

Constantine brought this up tangentially in the Obama thread: it's back.  The Democrats have reached a "compromise" which lets the telecoms off the hook until...our next election year, at which point I'm SURE they'll be much less craven.

Greenwald is all over it, and gives us a pretty damning bottom line:

I'd like to underscore the fact that in 2006, when the Congress was controlled by Bill Frist and Denny Hastert, the administration tried to get a bill passed legalizing warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty, but was unable. They had to wait until the Congress was controlled by Steny Hoyer, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to accomplish that.

My Congressman, Harry Mitchell, has been repeatedly disappointed me since taking office in '06, but he voted the right way on this last time.

I'm hoping we get a repeat of what happened then: huge grassroots opposition forces the House to kill it, despite the best efforts of the leaders of both parties.  But frankly I was surprised the Democrats did the right thing THEN; I'd be even MORE surprised if they did it on their "compromised" version.

[Arc]

What the fuck kinda name is Steny Hoyer?

Greenwald

The Ultimate Bringer of Bad News.

I'm half expecting him to break a story about a devil asteroid heading towards Earth before the day is out.

[Brentai]

...so basically we just dismantled the judicial branch of the checks and balances system.

Congratulations, everyone!  We've finally gotten past rewriting the Constitution and have moved on to outright burning it!

[Mongrel]

I've said it before elsewhere.

These changes will simply not be rescinded until some poor bastard gets the shaft in a catastrophic and public way, a la Maher Arar. And even then probably not. By the time the discussion on the need to change these laws reaches every American demographic, it will already be far, far too late.

Good Luck!

[Brentai]

We have the right asshole and we have the appropriate dick; we've somehow managed to spend 8 years failing to dick the asshole.

[Brentai]

Man, aint that the fucking story of my life.

[Arc]

House Bill passes, 293-129.

PARTY            YAY     NAY
Democratic......105.....128
Republican.......188.....1

Senate votes on the bill next week.

No word from Obama yet.

There's only one sane solution: BLOW IT UP!