If the Times is right, you should fix that post.

"Among the presidential contenders, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, voted in favor of the final measure, while the two Democrats, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, did not vote.""

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/us/13fisa.html?hp

I think the NYT is wrong. From the official senate roll call, Obama voted "Nay" and Clinton was "Not Voting."

In the least, they conflict. I went with the senate roll, and the Washington Post's coverage.

What really scares me isn't the spying going on today. It's the precedent we're allowing the Bushies to set. The precedent that the Executive doesn't need to obey the law, and that tapping our phones and email is something that a President can do without any kind of oversight. Sure, they may be spying only on suspected terrorists today. But if you know anything about power, you KNOW that it won't be long before they use the power to intercept the email of their political rivals, activists, anybody they don't like. The only thing keeping the Executive from abusing its power is judicial oversight. To allow spying without warrant is the same as shredding the Fourth Amendment of the Consitution. (And the fact that most Americans don't even KNOW what the Fourth Amendment says is even more depressing....)

"Who do we need working at the CIA and the NSA? A person who finds the notion of spying a little uncomfortable..."

Thanks for pointing this out... as a student studying what's known as computational linguistics, the NSA is trying to recruit my kind for precisely this task (data mining)... and they may well yet, despite my qualms about doing that work. Yours were precisely my thoughts when considering potential position... "If not me, then who?"

And finally, as someone who works closely with the DoD pointed out to me, "The whole reason we know about the NSA wiretapping is because of, well, the NSA." We have to remember that the leak of this program was, after all, an civic-minded internal whistleblower.

Meanwhile Afghanistan is going belly up.

Both Clinton and Obama were "Yea"
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:6:./temp/~c109eONuIx::

Eavesdropping and other such forms of intelligence are, at best, a good supplement to human intel.

Those who are bast suited to human intel work and know the most about the areas of the world of primary geopolitical interest to the US, have either been systematically driven away or are utterly disgusted by US policy. In either case their talents are lost.

One of my three high schools was in Langley,VA (about two miles from CIA headquarters). Easily half the kids there were CIA, DIA, NSA or State dept brats. Many, many of these kids went on to careers in anthropology, linguistics, political science, and religious studies and most of them wouldn't have touched the CIA with a 50 foot pole.

They concluded, correctly, that we're still as much a nation of sheep as during the runup to Iraq. We taught them that lesson. We encouraged them to do this.

Obama, Clinton, or McCain will assume an office whose powers have grown exceptionally dangerous.

Bush says that these changes are absolutely, positively necessary in order to protect the lives of American people.

However, Bush also indicated that he would refuse to sign this bill without the provision that gives telcos immunity for previous warrantless wiretapping.

If Bush really believes that these spying changes are necessary to save lives, but refuses to implement them without the telco immunity provision, that means that (1) he believes telco immunity is more important than American lives, or (2) he's lying to cover his ass.

In my mind, "lying to cover his ass" is the more likely of the two (though not mutually exclusive with the other possibility). If the wiretapping trials were allowed to proceed, I'm almost certain that we'd see evidence of abuses that make warrantless surveillance look like jaywalking.

But too often progressive fail to make efficiency arguments, handing that issue over to the conservatives when we don't have to and shouldn't.

The Fourth Amendment ensures efficiency in antiterrorism and anticrime efforts since it simply makes the government focus on those for whom we have probable cause.

In other words: go after the guys we know may be bad guys. Instead of going after everyone in the world who makes phone calls.

For the latter we need thousands of employees wasting thousands of hours listening to millions of innocuous conversations. A "typical wasteful government employment program" the right wing supposedly abhores.

But in this case it hurts our security, too, by dispersin resources so we don't focus them on the bad guys. Just like invading Iraq instead of going after OBL.
It's wrong, constitutionall, and it's ineffective and dangerous, too.

It's Nixon with better technology, and even less scruples.

If the government tells you to do something that's illegal, it's still illegal. It's the citizen's, or company's responsibility to follow the law or be prosecuted for it.

I'm not saying AT&T ranks up there with Nazi SS but they're liable for breaking the law just the same.

Also! The phrase "More after the jump" is hawt. Hot hot hot. It's striptease with words. Putting two thirds or more of your post after the jump is textual lingerie; it's the Wonderbra of blogging.

I know what I'm talking about.

Like, an actual whore? Wow. I'd pay to hit that.

Tree-fitty.

Don't like the gov lying about WMD?

Don't like the gov colluding with bad banks to launder crappy loans? (e.g CDO's)

Don't like the gov writing health insurance law that screws you and enriches big pharma?

Then love and protect our civil rights. Cause when you raise the price of dissent, you get less of it. And without a check *of* the people, gov power is going to demand a lot more checks *from* the people :-)

Every time some scaremonger tries to decrease civil rights the question needs to be

"Why do you love corruption?"

I really like Mike Malloy's take on this. I recorded this audio yesterday and I highly recommend it. Link below:

http://download.yousendit.com/0FDCC05D0AA5AD0A