FISA

Got this in my inbox last night. Seems germane:

Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Responsible Electronic Surveillance that is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective Act of 2007 – the “RESTORE Act,” in an effort to address concerns about civil liberty protections in the hastily-enacted “Protect America Act” that was signed into law in early August.

The RESTORE ACT, introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, restores court oversight of intelligence gathering by requiring that electronic surveillance programs be approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, mandating that FISA warrants be obtained when the government wants to undertake surveillance of persons in the US, and authorizing continued oversight of programs by the Court, Congress, and independent auditors.

Good for them. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, favorably reported a worse FISA bill out of the Judiciary committee yesterday, but, importantly, it has been stripped of the telecom immunity provisions that the Intel committee included back when they gave their version of the bill the OK. There's still a long way to go, but if both RESTORE and the Senate Judiciary's FISA bill were brought to conference for reconciliation today, it seems like something acceptable could come out of it. So now all that's left to do is wait and watch as Senate Republicans attempt to ruin the legislation, possibly succeed, threaten to filibuster if not, and if all else fails, blame Democrats when the president vetoes it.