re: Sen Chris Dodd's hold and filibuster

The Young Turks radio show this morning says that Obama announced he will back Dodd in this, haven't seen documentation yet.

This "oops accidently on purpose tapped the wrong side of the call"
provision looks like it's gonna make a mess. I'll bet that's exactly what Cheney wants. He and McConnell will have their minions push the edge of the envelope and dare any FISA judge to sqawk. Seeing as they've already been painted as Osama's handmaidens by the right I doubt any are going to be willing to rule on the side of law.

rmwarnick says "Any terrorist worthy of the name has stopped using phones and e-mail by now."

I think this really is the point of the opposition. This bill does not really fight terrorism and is all about Executive Branch power. I was naive enough at one time - earlier this week in fact - to believe that whoever came after Bush would be able to reverse his power grabs. But I think what I'm realizing now is that though these people may be ABLE to reverse his damage, they just won't do it. Power is too alluring to even the best of us. Congress are the only people who can stop this. That is true whether Bush or Hillary (or pray Obama) are in office.

All the spin and disinformation about the revisions to the FISA bill, and what they mean and don't mean, have created a total distrust of any action at all on FISA.

The actions of the Democrats in recent weeks make it clear they are more concerned with political attacks from the right than with preserving the Constitution.

Kudos for Senators Dodd and Feingold for standing up on this issue.

In my opinion, any revision of the FISA act should be COMPLETELY off the table until the next Administration and Congress. This Administration and this Congress have lost all credibility.

Pardon me for being cynical, but I hardly believe that the NSA and friends will abide by wiretapping laws when technology makes it so tempting to break and government secrecy prevents any prosecution if they do break the law. No US Attorney has ever brought such a prosecution against anyone. They would reveal too many secrets in the process of doing so. Let's also not forget the alleged warrantless detentions and renditioning of prisoners to other countries for torture. If they're willing to commit the criminal act of facilitating torture, then illegal wiretapping is child's play.

But it doesn't stop the wholesale collection of call information from the telcos, does it? Seems like after this bill, AT&T would be able to release information again, just as it did before. Remember, they weren't targeting specific people the first time, they got everyone's data so they could mine it for patterns. What in this bill keeps that from happening again?

I just wrote a couple hundred words here and it didn't show up. I forgot to copy and paste it somewhere else just in case. Checking to see if it was sent to a moderation queue or perhaps it's gone forever.

"may not intentionally target any person known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States,"

should be

"shall never target any person known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States,"

and this

"if the purpose of such acquisition is to target for surveillance a particular, known person reasonably believed to be inside the United States."

should be

"when the acquisition is to target for surveillance a particular, known person inside the United States."

That's my personal opinion. Removing intent and purpose would make it stricter.