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solarbird...but you don't get much of a briefing today. emptywheel at firedoglake is doing a lot of liveblogging of the debate, if you want lots of details. Here's my summary from that and a couple of other sources:
Today (Tuesday) was a debate day, so we got to see Democratic senators arguing against an amendment to make rulings of the FISA court continue to have any meaning. Historically, it had some tiny amount of meaning; under the new bill, it really has none, even when it is invoked. Chief Executive Mr. Bush also issued his list of amendments he'd consider accepting.
The Republican talking point on retroactive immunity currently seems to be "liability protection," which ties in with their assertion that the only people opposing retroactive immunity for separate and specific telco lawbreaking are "trial lawyers" who just want to go at it for the money. In reality, the cases moving forward - that this bill would stop - are primarily run pro-bono by people like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but reality never matters.
Senator Kit Bond (R-MS) attacked Quest for following existing law and refusing to illegally spy without warrants; what do you expect from the kind of jackass who says water torture is like swimming? And, also, Director of National Intelligence Mike "Zero Sum" McConnell and Democratic Senator Rockefeller (D) spent much of the day saying that if the Chief Executive doesn't get carte blache warrantless domestic spying, Al-Qa'ida will blow us up tomorrow, just as they did last time.
And that's about it. Amendments to make this better require 60 votes and amendments to make this worse require 50, as Senator Reid continues to support GOP silent filibusters while making the rump opposition wing of his own party do it for reals. So a bit of debate noise, but not much changed.
Today (Tuesday) was a debate day, so we got to see Democratic senators arguing against an amendment to make rulings of the FISA court continue to have any meaning. Historically, it had some tiny amount of meaning; under the new bill, it really has none, even when it is invoked. Chief Executive Mr. Bush also issued his list of amendments he'd consider accepting.
The Republican talking point on retroactive immunity currently seems to be "liability protection," which ties in with their assertion that the only people opposing retroactive immunity for separate and specific telco lawbreaking are "trial lawyers" who just want to go at it for the money. In reality, the cases moving forward - that this bill would stop - are primarily run pro-bono by people like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but reality never matters.
Senator Kit Bond (R-MS) attacked Quest for following existing law and refusing to illegally spy without warrants; what do you expect from the kind of jackass who says water torture is like swimming? And, also, Director of National Intelligence Mike "Zero Sum" McConnell and Democratic Senator Rockefeller (D) spent much of the day saying that if the Chief Executive doesn't get carte blache warrantless domestic spying, Al-Qa'ida will blow us up tomorrow, just as they did last time.
And that's about it. Amendments to make this better require 60 votes and amendments to make this worse require 50, as Senator Reid continues to support GOP silent filibusters while making the rump opposition wing of his own party do it for reals. So a bit of debate noise, but not much changed.
