Those who are coming to this story today have jumped into the middle of quite a tale. I put myself in a tough position last time by promising to link a British "garden of lust", Benjamin Franklin, and 18th Century bloggers into a narrative that concludes with the nascent United States of America and its shiny new Fourth Amendment.

So far, amazingly enough, I’m pulling it off.
If you need to catch up, here’s what’s been going on:

When last we met...it was in a world of scandal and intrigue; with King George III and the Earl of Bute (and of course, their assorted minions) very upset with John Entick, author, and John Wilkes, author and world-class raconteur (and drinking buddy to Franklin), because they had the temerity to...well, blog.

The Earl of Bute had taken so much abuse from the Johns that he had been forced to resign from his position as Prime Minister...leaving the minions under his control, many said, only now from behind the scenes.

Something needed to be done...and when you have minions, you put them to use.

Yes. I actually saw someone post a comment with those very words in it.

The contortions some of you people have made in the last 48 hours have been nothing short of astounding. I've seen everything from, "Obama has a secret plan that's going to protect your civil liberties, and won't you look stupid, then?" to the idea that it's only a "hard left" minority that's pushing the issue. Perhaps the most BRAZEN comment I've seen, is that Dodd and Feingold were somehow in the pockets of (dun-dun-DUUUUN) The Trial Lawyers of America, who would just LOVE to see telecom immunity stripped out of the bill, for all the lucrative lawsuits it would generate.

When Republican talking points get pushed to the rec list, we've truly gone through the looking glass.

After being kicked in the guts by the House Democrats and left lying on the floor, gasping for breath, I felt the need to return to the basics and re-examine exactly where I stand. Let's start here: The Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism

All President Bush wanted was "immunity" for the telecommunication companies.  Why?  To shield them from lawsuits.  Or to be more specific to shield them from motions of discovery which would reveal the full details of the spy program which our own government refuses to divulge.

Why the warrantless spy program in the first place?  The difference is record keeping and justification.  After all you can wiretap BEFORE even requesting a warrant and since almost every request the only requirement is you have to pass the laugh test.  If you can dress even the flimsiest piece of evidence and not have the judge fall down laughing your request will be granted.  And given only two requests have ever been rejected perhaps even that bar is too high.

No.  The real reason beyond just a pure power grab by the executive branch is so they never have to have anything they do or say explained to anyone.  And so if they decide to spy on say the Quakers or perhaps suspect lefty sites.  Or anything you'd never actually want to admit to.

No Retroactive Immunity, No Erosion of Liberties, No Warrantless Wiretaps

I am writing to you to remind you of your responsibility to protect the constitution of the United States. Americans sent a clear message in 2006 by empowering democrats with a majority in congress, because they wanted a change from the policies and the continual erosion of civil liberties by one George W. Bush and his administration.

Sadly, little if anything has been done on this front, and this congress has more often acted as enablers of a man who has outright contempt for the rule of law and detests transparency in leadership.

I will not forget that you and your party did not deem it worthy to pursue the 35 articles of impeachment that were brought to the floor against a president who has spied illegally on our citizens, detains hundreds abroad (and at home) without charge indefinitely, and most recently has been proven (as if there was ever any doubt) to have institutionalized torture.

You and your democratic "leadership" have however, found time once again to bring to the floor a bill that strips away even more of the people's civil liberties (the people by whose consent you govern) and grants immunity to those who aided and abetted illegal and warrant-less spying on the American people.

John McBush crapping on the U.S Constitution and emulating his hero once again.

If anything, tying McCain and Bush together is going to be easy pickin's for Obama.

Either McCain does not understand our laws or does not respect them.  Not a good sign for someone sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws of our land.  Even worse for someone who aspires to be president.

In a letter posted online by National Review this week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain believed that the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required court oversight of surveillance.

Source: NYT

When Joe Lieberman is actually trying to pry information out of DHS, you know we've got a serious problem:

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Me., are seeking detailed explanations from the Department of Homeland Security regarding a new initiative to secure federal information technology systems.

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Senators reiterate their support for the Administration’s heightened attention to cyber security as evidenced by creation of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). The CNCI, formally established in January, is intended to strengthen the federal government’s ability to secure the electronic networks and databases upon which it relies.

But, given the Administration’s request to triple DHS’ cyber security budget over the past year, the Senators are asking for specific information on issues ranging from the secrecy of the project to its heavy reliance on contractors to the lack of involvement by the private sector, which controls the vast majority of the nation’s cyber infrastructure.

While making it absolutely clear that he supports the administration on cyber security, even Lieberman doesn't have enough information on this one. His letter contains 17 questions, many of them multiple point, trying to determine information that they've been trying to get at since they first asked for a briefing five months ago.

The program is another potential assault on our privacy rights. This is a wide-ranging program in which the entire intelligence community--including the NSA--will be tasked with monitoring the nation's computer networks. Why should this be such a concern to even Lieberman? Wired sum that up:

Why might citizens be worried about privacy and civil liberties? Consider that the whole initiative appears to have been launched after the Director of National Intelligence told the President Bush that a cyber attack might wreak as much economic havoc as 9/11 did.

Consider that the NSA, which currently protects classified networks, wants to expand into protecting all non-classified federal government networks. Consider that Congress is set to legalize the NSA's monitoring rooms in the nation's phone and internet infrastructure.

For its part, the FBI says it also needs access to the internet's backbone, while the Air Force is hyping its own efforts at cyber defense and offense. Meanwhile, THREAT LEVEL's sister blog Danger Room reports that DARPA is getting in on the hot cyber-action, with a project to make a fake internet to develop new cyber attacks and defenses....

Now it seems the only question is whether the government will be able to turn the net into a controllable, monitorable and trackable pre-internet AOL-type service or whether the chaotic net will live on as just another frontier for the military-industrial complex to start an arm's race and rake in billions of government dollars.

This attempt to expand the reach of the intelligence agencies--given their proven and blatant disregard for following the law--deserves to be questioned, and both the House and Senate Intelligence committees should pick up the theme and join Lieberman in asking these important questions.

Yet another reason the Protect AT&T Act--or any other intelligence desire of this administration--should not be granted. Chertoff's five-month refusal to cooperate with Lieberman, of all people, proves that these people cannot be trusted with our privacy.

We all have been waiting for the House leadership to Stand for the Constitution and Rule of Law on FISA. Glenn Greenwald has all the sad details. It is not pretty and you need to fortify yourself when you go below the fold.

Update from Glenn

This report was based on unimpeachable sources close to the whole process. I'm getting a little bit of pushback already from others claiming that the plan and strategy of the House Democratic leadership is more nuanced than what I've described, and that the bill they will promote is better (the statement: "A House aide disputes both the specifics of the draft and the presumed strategy"). I'll be happy if that's true (though I doubt it), and hopefully, the fact that there's pushback at all means this is still a vibrant, ongoing process that can be affected. I'll be happy to add any statements, denials and the like.

Many of us have had these suspicions for a long time. Now a Tech. has confirmed some of our worse fears. The compilicity of the Telecoms is undeniable when you look at how it is being done. According to "Computer security analyst Babak Pasdar says that a major mobile telecommunications carrier has a built-in backdoor that provides an undisclosed third-party with unfettered access to its internal technical infrastructure, including the ability to eavesdrop on all calls through its network." http://arstechnica.com/...

A U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia, has direct, high-speed access to a major wireless carrier's systems, exposing customers' voice calls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled surveillance, according to a computer security consultant who says he worked for the carrier in late 2003.

 Wired

On Friday afternoon the White House posted without fanfare a new Executive Order that revamps an important though little known intelligence board. There are a few minor changes, but the most radical revision appears to be that the board has now been stripped of nearly all its powers to investigate and check illegal intelligence activities. It's difficult to see what legitimate reasons there could have been for gutting the oversight activities of the board in this way, and the WH has not explained the changes.

And perhaps not coincidentally, the board has been renamed. Under the older Executive Order from 1993, it was called the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). Now it has been renamed the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB), suggesting perhaps that the Bush administration had domestic intelligence activities in mind while making these revisions.

PFIAB is tasked with a range of things, but particularly with assessing "the quality, quantity, and adequacy of intelligence collection, of analysis and estimates, and of counterintelligence and other intelligence activities"; and with reviewing the performance of intelligence agencies. Board members are meant to bring an independent point of view to bear on intelligence activities; they cannot be employees of the federal government. This excellent post from 2006 by georgia10 has essential background on the board.

PFIAB members get unprecedented access to our nation's most closely gaurded secrets. They have, according to Salon, "access to intelligence that is unavailable to most members of Congress. They are privy to intelligence from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the military intelligence agencies and others." ...

The historical role of the PFIAB cannot be underscored enough.  It has the ability to look into the most controversial aspects of our intelligence. For example, after the flurry of controversy about the 16 words in Bush's SOTU speech, it was the PFIAB that was the first government body to conclude the claim was "questionable"--though it did blame the insertion on the lack of "an organized system at the White House to vet intelligence."

Georgia also highlighted how, over the course of his presidency, Bush had stacked the PFIAB increasingly with cronies and utter hacks - many of whom were in no way capable of assessing intelligence activities or reviewing agencies. In other words, Bush clearly had little interest in using the Board as intended, to serve as an independent check upon the country's intelligence services.

And now Bush has remade PFIAB/PIAB in such a way as to take away the very means the Board used to possess to check out-of-control intelligence activities.

There is a powerful and critical standing committee within PFIAB, the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB). It was created in 1976 after the exposure of widespread intelligence abuses. IOB's purpose was to act as a check upon illegal intelligence activities. The most radical changes in the new Executive Order concern the IOB, which Bush has stripped of important powers and duties.

Here from the 1993 Executive Order are the relevant powers and duties of the IOB, which were in effect until Friday. I have put in bold several notable clauses.

Sec. 2.2.  The Iob shall:

(a)  prepare for the President reports of intelligence activities that the Iob believes may be unlawful or contrary to Executive order or Presidential directive;

(b)  forward to the Attorney General reports received concerning intelligence activities that the Iob believes may be unlawful or contrary to Executive order or Presidential directive;

(c)  review the internal guidelines of each agency within the Intelligence Community that concern the lawfulness of intelligence activities;

(d)  review the practices and procedures of the Inspectors General and General Counsel of the Intelligence Community for discovering and reporting intelligence activities that may be unlawful or contrary to Executive order or Presidential directive; and

(e)  conduct such investigations as the Iob deems necessary to carry out its functions under this order.

Now compare the IOB's powers and duties under Bush's new Executive Order. You'll note that nearly all the foregoing powers and duties are gone, and with them, any real chance of independence of action.

Sec. 6. Functions of the IOB. Consistent with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order, the IOB shall:

(a) issue criteria on the thresholds for reporting matters to the IOB, to the extent consistent with section 1.7(d) of Executive Order 12333 or the corresponding provision of any successor order;

(b) inform the President of intelligence activities that the IOB believes:

(i)(A) may be unlawful or contrary to Executive Order or presidential directive; and

(B) are not being adequately addressed by the Attorney General, the DNI, or the head of the department concerned; or

(ii) should be immediately reported to the President.

(c) review and assess the effectiveness, efficiency, and sufficiency of the processes by which the DNI and the heads of departments concerned perform their respective functions under this order and report thereon as necessary, together with any recommendations, to the President and, as appropriate, the DNI and the head of the department concerned;

(d) receive and review information submitted by the DNI under subsection 7(c) of this order and make recommendations thereon, including for any needed corrective action, with respect to such information, and the intelligence activities to which the information relates, as necessary, but not less than twice each year, to the President, the DNI, and the head of the department concerned; and

(e) conduct, or request that the DNI or the head of the department concerned, as appropriate, carry out and report to the IOB the results of, investigations of intelligence activities that the IOB determines are necessary to enable the IOB to carry out its functions under this order.

The newly revised IOB is much more passive. Gone is the duty to review agency guidelines regarding illegal intelligence activities. Gone is the duty to hold accountable the intelligence watchdog offices, such as inspectors general, who are supposed to serve as a bulwark against illegal activities.

Gone is the duty ("shall...forward") to take illegal activities directly to the Attorney General. That was a core function of the IOB originally. As before, the IOB can still report any illegality to the president - who may however have had a hand in the law-breaking. Indeed the IOB is discouraged from doing even that much if the lawlessness already seems to be getting "addressed" by some agency head or the DNI. The new rules seem to envisage at least in some cases that illegal activities identified by IOB can be remedied with bureaucratic fixes without notifying the Justice Department.

Gone too, for the most part, are independent investigations. What's left is mainly the duty to review and respond to the reports sent back to IOB by the DNI, who now acts as an intermediary for any complaints that IOB may make about illegal intelligence activities. IOB's recommendations have to be laundered through the DNI henceforth. As described in section 7 of the new Executive Order, the DNI may act upon IOB's recommendations to correct illegal activities, or even report the activities to the Attorney General, as appropriate. But the IOB is essentially dependent upon the DNI. It cannot effect any change or expose any crimes against the wishes of the DNI (or President).

As the AP report emphasizes, Bush's Executive Order transfers many of IOB's former powers and responsibilities directly to the DNI.

A new White House executive order splits the watchdog duties of the Intelligence Oversight Board, a five-member panel of private citizens, with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell. Rather than intelligence agencies reporting their activities to the board for review, they will now report them to McConnell...

Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, an advocacy group, said the move appears to dilute the independent board's investigatory powers in favor of a member of the president's administration.

"It makes the new board subordinate to the (national intelligence director) in a way that the old board was not subordinate to the director of central intelligence," he said.

In short, the IOB has been hollowed out and lost any real ability to act independently to uncover, thwart, expose, or punish illegal intelligence activities.

To return, then, to the name change. It could be that the hollowing out of the IOB's powers is related to the fact that the PFIAB, now PIAB, has lost the term "Foreign" in its name. The Bush administration is engaged in an epic struggle with Congress to keep its illegal domestic intelligence activities secret. That is what the battle over the FISA bill is all about. The last thing Bush, Cheney, and Addington would wish to do would be to leave the IOB in a position to start investigating or exposing that illegality - now, or in a future administration.

It's worth noting that an anonymous WH official has offered to the Associated Press a preposterous explanation for the new Executive Order. It is, the official claims, all about forcing the intelligence agencies to work with DNI Mike McConnell. And how does that explain the stripping away of IOB's duty to report illegal activities directly to the Attorney General? No, the WH spin is meant to distract from, rather than explain, that very fact.

This is yet another major intelligence reform of the post-Nixon era that the Bush administration has undermined.

From Open Left It looks like someone is looking for lipstick for a pig. Or maybe it is a fig leaf (albeit much too tiny). Or maybe just political cover before they Roll Over and Capitulate.
Updated

   Yesterday there was an 6 minute interview (video) with Mike McConnell and Chris Wallace from Fox News. All of those who have followed this saga story know that the Bush/Cheney administration has used illegal wiretapping since before 9/11. I don't intend to go into the details of the deception of the FISA Law before January, 2007 when an agreement was reached with the administration where at least one aspect of the program was brought back under direct authority of the FISA Court. Before this date, much of our nation's surveillance was done secretly by the telecom companies for our government. They obviously were given assurances by this administration that what they were doing was legal but because of national security, title 2 interpretations, and possibly even October 2002 authorization for war provided by Congress. The latter is more doubtful simply because they were not following the prescribed "exclusive" means for foreign surveillance prior to October, 2002.
   Join me below to see one small aspect of our cooperation with the telcoms and how it is now directing the debate in Congress.

Terence Hunt, of the Associated Press, please, please do your research.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Saturday that lawmakers' failure to renew an eavesdropping law will make it more difficult to track terrorists and "we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America."

Democrats faulted the president, who taped his weekly radio address before he left on a trip in Africa, for "whipping up false fears and creating artificial confrontation."

"Their true concern here is not national security," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement. "Rather they want to protect the financial interests of telecommunications companies and avoid judicial scrutiny of their warrantless wiretapping program."

At issue is a law that made it easier for the government to spy on foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the United States. The expiration time: midnight Saturday.

Yes, that's what is at issue. And you don't address that issue at all. For gawd's sake, there are facts involved here. And they aren't "Bush Facts." Yes, reporting what he said, and then what they said is much simpler, and far less taxing to the brain.

The simple truth on this particular issue is that all of the mechanisms for continued surveillance are in place and remain in place regardless of the expiration of the PAA. And this simple truth is not that hard to find.

You could look at DNI McConnell's statement from yesterday:

NPR: Mr. McConnell, the Bush administration says that if the Protect America Act isn't made permanent, it will tie your hands, intelligence hands, especially when it comes to new threats. But isn't it true that any surveillance underway does not expire, even if this law isn't renewed by tomorrow?

MCCONNELL: Well, Renee it's a very complex issue. It's true that some of the authorities would carry over to the period they were established for one year. That would put us into the August, September time-frame. However, that's not the real issue. The issue is liability protection for the private sector.

Got that? The real issue isn't keeping us safe--straight from the Director of National Intelligence. We're safe.

Or you could ask an intelligence analyst.

"There's no reason to think our nation will be in any more danger in 2008 than it was in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, or 2006," said Timothy Lee, a scholar at the Cato Institute, explaining the original FISA rules contain the tools necessary for thorough government surveillance.

You could, of course, also read the statute:

`ADDITIONAL PROCEDURE FOR AUTHORIZING CERTAIN ACQUISITIONS CONCERNING PERSONS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES

`Sec. 105B. (a) Notwithstanding any other law, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, may for periods of up to one year authorize the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States.

That's the part that McConnell was admitting to in the first quote.

To sum up, Mr. Hunt: Nothing. Changes. At. Midnight. Tonight. The sky ain't gonna fall because Mr. Bush didn't get his way after this particular temper tantrum.

Yesterday House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said this:

Now, the president asserts that the expiration of the protect America act will pose a danger to our country. The former National Security Council advisor on terrorism says that's not true. Former assistant attorney general says that's not true. Numerous others, and the chairman, has asserted that's not true. Why is that not true? Because FISA will remain in effect. The authority given under the protect America act remains in effect. And if there are new targets, the FISA court has full authority to give every authority to the administration to act. So I tell my friends, we are pursuing the politics of fear. Unfounded fear. 435 members of this house and every one of us, every one of us wants to keep America and Americans safe. Not one of us -- not one of us wants to subject America or Americans to danger. The president's assertion is wrong. I say it categorically. The president's assertion is wrong.

And House Intelligence Chair Sylvestre Reyes said this:

The issue of telecom liability should be carefully considered based on a full review of the documents that your Administration withheld from Congress for eight months. However, it is an insult to the intelligence of the American people to say that we will be vulnerable unless we grant immunity for actions that happened years ago....

I, for one, do not intend to back down - not to the terrorists and not to anyone, including a President, who wants Americans to cower in fear.

We are a strong nation. We cannot allow ourselves to be scared into suspending the Constitution. If we do that, we might as well call the terrorists and tell them that they have won.

Today, via TalkLeft, the Denver paper Rocky Mountain News (no bastion of liberalism, that) said this:

Earlier this week, President Bush actually suggested that al-Qaida operatives are watching the calendar, poised to plot new attacks freely with Congress absent - and U.S. intelligence officials will be largely powerless to stop them.

Don't insult the American public, Mr. President. You'll still have the ability to wiretap suspected terrorists - and the warrantless surveillance powers in the bill are valid until August....

If immunity is in the final legislation - and Bush has said he'd veto any bill that doesn't include it - it would kill the 40-plus lawsuits that have been filed against telecoms in federal court. The litigation challenges the legality of the program and the actions of telecoms that cooperated with the government.

If the lawsuits don't move forward, we may never learn if some telecoms compromised the privacy of innocent Americans. A grant of immunity could also set a dangerous precedent for other businesses when federal agents or local cops who don't have a court order demand private or confidential information about their customers....

Letting this litigation proceed would not, as Bush said Wednesday, punish companies that want to "help America." Businesses that want to help America need to be mindful of the Constitution - and so should the government.

That's what happens when Democrats finally stand their ground against the Bush administration and tell the truth. It gets picked up, even by the traditional media, and it spreads.Colorado's Democratic senator, the Blue Dog Dem Salazar, has sided with Bush on this one. Now that the hometown news is taking note, he might do well to reconsider.

Right on cue, Fred Hiatt turns real estate on his editorial pages over to the lies and fear mongering of everyone's favorite Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell. Point by point, every paragraph that McConnell pens, contains a falsehood.

The first: "the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- has not kept up with the technology revolution we have experienced over the past 30 years." The reality? FISA has been updated multiple times since it was enacted in 1978. It covers all of the modern technologies, including cell phones and computers. In fact, Congress updated it in October, 2001, and as Greenwald reminds us Bush lauded it then, saying "This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones."

Having started out with a whopper, McConnell continues, and gets to the real point, or rather, the point they're hanging their hats on while desperately trying to cover the administration's ass on its illegal activities since February, 2001:

The Protect America Act, passed by Congress last August, temporarily closed the gaps in our intelligence collection, but there was a glaring omission: liability protection for those private-sector firms that helped defend the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks. This month, I testified before Congress, along with the other senior leaders of the intelligence community, on the continuing threats to the United States from terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets. We stated that long-term legislation that modernized FISA and provided retroactive liability protection was vital to our operations. The director of the FBI told the Senate that "in protecting the homeland it's absolutely essential" to have the support of private parties.

To be perfectly clear, "liability protection" has absolutely nothing to do with creating a gap in our intelligence collection. None. Which, conveniently, McConnell himself stated in an interview on NPR this morning (h/t Greenwald):

NPR: Mr. McConnell, the Bush administration says that if the Protect America Act isn't made permanent, it will tie your hands, intelligence hands, especially when it comes to new threats. But isn't it true that any surveillance underway does not expire, even if this law isn't renewed by tomorrow?

MCCONNELL: Well, Renee it's a very complex issue. It's true that some of the authorities would carry over to the period they were established for one year. That would put us into the August, September time-frame. However, that's not the real issue. The issue is liability protection for the private sector.

Intelligence gaps are not "the real issue." Greenwald:

Rather, as McConnell candidly admits, the "real issue" is "liability protection for the private sector." To take them at their word, George Bush and Mike McConnell are putting the nation at risk in order to ensure that AT&T and Verizon do not have to be held accountable in a court of law for having broken the law. Think about how twisted and corrupt that calculus is.

Twisted and corrupt indeed. But, remember, it's not just so that AT&T and Verison aren't held accountable. It's to prevent legal action going forward that, in the discovery process, would expose the full extent of the administration's illegal activity. This isn't just protecting AT&T and Verizon. It's protecting the Rove/Gonzales/Cheney/Bush cabal.

A final point, again from Greenwald:

One other vital point: The claim that telecoms will cease to cooperate without retroactive immunity is deeply dishonest on multiple levels, but the dishonesty is most easily understood when one realizes that, under the law, telecoms are required to cooperate with legal requests from the government. They don't have the option to "refuse." Without amnesty, telecoms will be reluctant in the future to break the law again, which we should want. But there is no risk that they will refuse requests to cooperate with legal surveillance, particularly since they are legally obligated to cooperate in those circumstances. The claim the telcoms will cease to cooperate with surveillance requests is pure fear-mongering, and is purely dishonest.

It is purely dishonest, and it's absolutely no surprise that the venue for it today is Fred Hiatt's editorial page, where there obviously are no fact-checkers. You would have thought after seven years of pushing Bush administration lies, they'd have the self-respect to stop pushing them. But no, they're going to come out of the Bush administration looking just as tainted as every damned lying one of the bunch.

For those of you that didn't catch it. Here's Keith Olbermann last night on a nice "little" (a full 9 mins and 41 secs) rant about the telcom immunity/amnesty.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

I love a hot cup of righteous KO indignation, for sure, but it's worth paying attention to this rant not just for what it validates in our own rantings here.

Upon reading the synopsis of the so called Whitehouse-Spector substitution amendment, it immediately became apparent the real reason behind the amendment.  By shifting the legal obligation to the White House, it enables them to claim executive privilege.  This will prevent any potentially embarrassing information from escaping.  We must stop this!
Every needs to urge their Senators to vote against the so called Whitehouse-Spector substitution amendment.  Otherwise, this could end up yet another instance where they barely sneak by.