Most progressive bloggers, like myself, have written much about Dubya and his flunkies' FISA demands like retroactive telecom immunity and other extortions directed at Congress in order to create a permanent, authoritarian above-the-law, totalitarian, fascist presidential surveillance state here in the good old USA, with the help of some "so called" Democrats.

Even though certain "so called" Democrats in the Senate have caved to Bush by recently voting to pass an unconstitutional bill, the House temporarily called his lying bluff and wouldn't renew Bush's phony demands for unnecessary surveillance authority and postponed negotiating the egregious Senate bill that gives the buffoon in the White House and his telecom cronies protection from their crimes. 

Instead of stopping Bush's trampling and defiance of the Constitution and rule of law, the Democratic controlled Senate leadership enabled Bush's anti-constitution, anti-rule of law FISA "update" to succeed by sheer lack of common sense, stupidity, and deliberate collusion. Former Senator Frank Church would be appalled.

"The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 is a U.S. federal law prescribing procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between or among "foreign powers" on territory under United States control. 

It even allows for warrantless wiretapping with a provisio: "The President may authorize, through the Attorney General, electronic surveillance without a court order for the period of one year provided it is only for foreign intelligence information;^[8] targeting foreign powers as defined by 50 U.S.C. §1801(a)(1),(2),(3)^[9] or their agents; and there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party."

FISA even permits 72 hours of warrantless wiretapping while a warrant is obtained.  FISA courts very rarely refuse a warrant request.

The FISA bill of 1978 was and is modern, effective intelligence legislation that protects the constitutional rights of Americans.

It wasn't broke; it didn't need fixing.

But Congress, under Democratic leadership which traded integrity for fears of being called soft on terrorism by dishonorable Republicans, bowed to Bush and his toadies and rushed in like fools to pass the Protect America Act, supposedly a modernization of the FISA bill, but in fact a flawed travesty.  Then Congress tried to fix those mistakes with the Restore Act, which had its own anti-constitutional problems like blanket warrants. 

Because Bush had already defied the FISA Act and broken the law by warrantless spying on Americans with the assistance of some telecoms who also broke the law and need retroactive cover for their criminal acts against the American people, the Shrub and his twigs spurn any FISA reform that does not give retroactive immunity.

The Democratic led Congress should have shouted the truth non-stop from Capitol Hill to the American people, that Bush had committed a crime and spied (and continues to spy) on their phone calls and emails.  Instead, Democratic leadership in the Senate gave Bush legal cover for his past anti-FISA crimes and allowed him to continue to spy on all Americans.  The Senate should have refused to eviscerate the carefully legislated, effective, constitutional FISA bill of 1978.  They did not and now we have this unconstitutional Big Brother mess that abrogates Americans' privacy rights. 

There are better, smarter progressive Democrats among the Democratic base who should be serving in Congress in place all the Republican Bushites and many of the Democratic idiots that are currently there.

That's one way to ensure a pro-Constitution Congress again and end this eight year totalitarian nightmare.