While I wouldn't call it treason, granting cover to the telcoms was a singularly gutless and conscienceless act. I do what I can and I don't have a magic wand to make all 68 (I thought it was 69) go away. What I can do is express my outrage to my Senator (Tom Carper) and insure that I work on behalf of whomever runs against him in future elections.

Short of that, it would be nice to have a federal prosecutor eager enough to look into what Bush, Cheney, et al were about.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

I knew fucking Inouye would vote for it.  I've hated his ass ever since he let Reagan off the hook for Iran-Contra because "it would cause a Constituitonal crisis."  Fuck yeah having a President who blatantly breaks the law is a Constitutional crisis!  Maybe if he'd been a Democrat instead of a DINO a few decades ago we wouldn't be in this mess.

While, on second reading, I do find your criticisms of my comment above astute, didn't the judge in the last two links already find that "the law says that "the exclusive means" for foreign intelligence collections is FISA, not some bullshit 'program' dreamed up by John Yoo and David Addington" to be the case?

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Read the last two links. There is a federal judge prepared to find President George W. Bush criminally liable should the attorneys for the plaintiff in the case be able to show within 30 days (without using any evidence that has been declared a state secret--and there's the catch) that their clients where spied upon and the attorneys think they can meet that standard. Where it goes from there...

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Jan. 19, 2009:

1. Bush gives blanket pardons to all cronies
   
2. Bush resigns
   

There's no way to prevent the first two steps, the only way to prevent the third is to refuse to swear in Cheney.

It's time for a constitutional amendment.  The power of the pardon needs to be restricted so that the President cannot give pardons for acts done on his behalf.

Perhaps the most unsafe place to be after a primary season is between Obama and the middle of the road.

Obama an agent of change? Ok. Sure.

The problem isn't so much Obama as it is the system itself, or perhaps democracy in general.  Plato was one of the first, if certainly not the last, to argue that sometimes what the people want isn't always the best policy.  As much as I dislike this legislation, it's not surprising to me that it passed.  It was crafted in such a way that it could be sold as a middle-of-the-road compromise (although you and I might argue that it's not) and I think it's fair to say that most voters, if they think much about this at all, will think "well if it protects us from the terr'rists it must be good!"  Civil liberties issues (other than religion and gun rights!), particularly abstracts ones like this, rarely win anyone an election - but being seen as soft on terror may well LOSE you an election (which, I'm sure, is the calculation Obama made on this).  

If the American public truly cared about this as an issue the vote would have gone the other way.  The sad, annoying fact is that they don't, so you get what you get.  Congress or Bush didn't "fool" the public over this one - it got press coverage enough, and if people really were up in arms about it and wrote their Senators and what have you it would have played out differently (if there's one thing Congressmen pay attention to, it's spontaneous writing campaigns by their constituents - they know that if an issue gets people pissed off enough to actually take the time to write a letter, that it's something that might haunt them the next time elections roll around...).  Frankly, I'm starting to think that we're fortunate that our government is as good as it is.  Considering the level of political awareness of your average American, and the things that it's pretty clear people generally base their vote on (simple name recognition, "magic hair", ephemeral impressions, simple party affiliation), it's a wonder we've made it as far as we have.

Perhaps the most unsafe place to be after a primary season is between Obama and the middle of the road