FISA liveblog - the fight continues. I am not a Mothership

But i guess i'll play one on tv for now.

I'm still new to the diary process and i don't have the knowledge or time today to actually do what looks like the hard work of a mothership or liveblog wrangling today. But i'm hoping that by posting this people can start commenting on FISA goings on today.

Not sure if the Senate is going to be doing FISA intermittently with the stimulus package or not, but they at least seem to be going back and forth to it.

So post away here until someone gets folks organized. As i'm putting this together Hatch is speaking out against minimization.

We need to keep on top of this, know what the repubs are arguing so we can counter them effectively.

That's it for now. I can pay attention to this entry for about an hour (until about 10am Mountain time), i'll adjust it as i get advice, but if the Senate keeps talking about this someone else will have to take over. It may not even be worthy of a liveblog today. As they really do seem to be bouncing back and forth, so maybe this diary can simply just go as is as a place to post when stuff happens.

Here is a link to some minutes (?) for a senate session that describes some amendments by number. If i get time i'll try to consolidate numbers and post summary here. The reference to numbers and names confuses me.

From mcjoan's FP, here is a better list of some of the amendments

# Feingold's S 3979, which prevents communication collection if the government knows beforehand that communication is to or from a person believed to be in the U.S. # Feingold's reverse targeting, S 3913, which prohibits the government from getting around FISA's court order requirement by wiretapping an individual overseas when it is really interested in a person in the U.S. with whom that supposed foreign target is communicating. # Feingold's Specific Individual Target test, S 3912, which prohibits bulk collection and requires the government to certify to the FISA Court that it is collecting communications of targets for whom there is a foreign intelligence interest. # Feingold's Use Limits, S 3915: gives the FISA Court discretion to impose restrictions on the use of information about Americans that is acquired through procedures later determined to be illegal by the FISA court. # Dodd/Feingold's S 3907, which strips telco amnesty from the bill. # Whitehouse/Specter's substitution, S 3927 which substitutes the government for telcos being sued for their participation in the warrantless wiretapping program, but only if the company is first determined by the FISA Court to have cooperated with the Bush Administration reasonably and in good faith. # Feinstein's S 3919, which would allow FISC to review the AG's declaration that the telcos acted in good faith before they get their immunity.

It looks like this liveblog has gone cold. I can't watch CSPAN currently, so i'm hoping that means that they are not talking FISA now. I haven't seen another liveblog go up yet about this, just the FP by mcjoan.

Look for links below. Hopefully someone will pick up the slack once i leave my comp for a few hours. Post a link to a mothership/another liveblog if someone can get one together if this starts to fill up or goes cold. Please post the link to lgcap's first (chronological) comment. Please keep that comment's reply space open for link posting.

This diary is long dead, but if you need good summary info on FISA here is a gift. mcjoan posted a comment neatly summarizing amendments and vote requirements here. this is a must-have link for us FISA nerds.