THANK YOU Congress

You know, I've been pretty depressed on occasion by the constant knuckling under of the congress to Bush's demands for "compromise" (read: stamp my feet until you pass what I tell you to pass) on FISA legislation. I fully expected the House Republicans plus 20 odd Blue Dogs to screw this up and pass a Bush friendly bill. But they didn't! The House (and really, this came about thanks to the House leadership, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer) passed a very good FISA bill that does not include retroactive immunity for law breaking by phone companies. Yes!

Boy this really makes my day. Really there is no more fundamental issue for Democracy than the principle that no one is above the law. Had this gone through, it would basically eliminate any judicial review of illegal (yes ILLEGAL) spying by the government and the cooperation of telcos. This really is a huge win.

To be sure the fight isn't over. The chances of it passing the Senate are up in the air, and Bush would almost certainly veto, but you know what? That's fine. Look, FISA will still exist with or without this legislation. FISA has been in effect since 1978, the bill itself isn't on the line. This is just an amendment to FISA. So if it doesn't pass, we're just going to stick with the regular old powers that the government had before, which are really quite broad anyway (retroactive warrants, secret court approval of warrants, etc).

Thanks Nancy. Way to not cave.

UPDATE: To link to Glenn Greenwald here.