Welcome back, CHS. You missed another fun week, but it just keeps getting better and better…

Reading Greenwald (and being in a dark deep subcategory of newsconsumer), I have to say that I had no idea about the October 2001 revisions of FISA. Following this (warrantless wiretapping) and the various other threads (USAs, Plamegate, etc.) for awhile now, I wonder how many Pups and others knew that FISA had been thoroughly revised?

I don’t think somebody like McConnell makes an honest mistake here, but the October revisions are definitely not part of the mainstream–or, I don’t think, naive blogstream like me–understanding of the sequence of events in the NSA story. For instance, were the revisions mentioned in the Frontline documentary last week?

I think that there were also FISA revisions in the early-1990’s after the FBI used FISA to declare Aldrich Ames a “foreign agent”. Certainly there was an expansion to include “physical searches” in the FISA Act in 1995.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/…..ame-thing/

I believe that the term used in the FISA Law is “electronic communication” and “electronic interception”. There is no issue with the ability of FISA to apply to email AND OTHER DIGITAL TRANSMISSIONS. It’s just silly. Where the Bush administration apparently has problems is with their wanting to undertake widespread “fishing expeditions” on billions of communications of those not involved with terrorists in order to find a few words of phrases that might be related to terrorism.

These programs are blatantly illegal, and of course would never receive warrants from a FISA court.

When McConnel suggests that technology has outrun FISA he isn’t talking about the technology used by terrorists, he’s talking about the governments ability to spy on massive amounts of people, both citizens and non-citizens alike. FISA is a roadblock in the ability of these government spies to snoop on our daily affairs. McConnel wants to rescind the 4th Amendment.

The weather in southern california this spring has been very substandard. We haven’t seen much of the sun and we’ve been stuck in the low sixties.

That’s not bad for much of the country- but it sucks big time for those of us here.

Enjoy it while you can. In 20 years, all of SoCal will be like El Centro all year round.

xyz

My congresscritter is Bilbray- not much chance but I’ll drop him a line.

I feel your pain; I’m in Royce’s district. He’s going to die in that seat unless he gets caught in the sack with a dead girl or a live boy, or a sack full of Brent Wilkes’ cash. But I can drive across town and be in Loretta Sanchez-land. And we can start working on finding a credible Dem to go after Rohrbacher in 2008.

Here’s what I want from our next president and Congress. An end to the occupation of Iraq. No more unprovoked wars by the U.S. government anywhere. And a comprehensive top to bottom new Middle East policy. Starting with a fair and just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sounds reasonable to me!!!!

Bob Schacht @ 110

What we need to Prime the Pump is some actual proposed Articles of Impeachment against Gonzales. If anyone knows where they can be found, please drop off a note at Priming the Pump.

Bob in HI

Ask and ye shall receive – they’re coming; here’s the preface.

Thanks! But this is still, as you observe, only the preface. No actual formal proposed Articles of Impeachment yet that I can see. Or did I miss them? Yes, the raw material is there. But we need a lawyer who is used to writing indictments to translate that raw material into the right legal language. (Christy, are your ears still on???)

Bob in HI

Follow the dots: from emptywheel to here.

xyz

My congresscritter is Bilbray- not much chance but I’ll drop him a line.

Is your Congressman still claiming that his permanent residence is not at his home in Imperial Beach or on the East Coast with his family, but in his mother’s house in Carlsbad; within the district he represents. Have any of his mother’s neighbors seen him lately?

GSD @ 113

That would be like trying to argue that the peeping Tom laws should be changed because of the advent of thermopane windows.

-GSD

MySpace in deal with 8 state attorneys general

By Kenneth Li
Reuters
Monday, May 21, 2007; 12:59 PM

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Popular Internet social network MySpace said on Monday it reached an accord with eight U.S. state attorneys general and has worked out a legal mechanism to hand over information on convicted sex offenders found on its service.

Last week, a coalition of U.S. law enforcement authorities criticized the News Corp.-owned (NWSa.N) service for not divulging information from profiles of convicted sex offenders on MySpace.

–snip–

Does anyone else think this is a bit…too much?

Why 8 here?— interesting symmetry.