Seems like the latest round of the FISA wars is going to more of the same. Mostly an put on show where the hopes of the far left are raised and then dashed again when nothing much changes. The fact is Bush and the GOP hold all the cards. They know what the changes in FISA did, as do the Dems. They saved lives. More than that, the changes in reality are much less than the hype coming out of the liberal left. The one major change was NSA leads on terrorists in the US, detected by intercepting a communication between a foreign target (the monitoring of whom is legal and has been for decades) and the person in the US, can be (1) passed to the FBI for further investigation (but no focused surveillance on all their communication is allowed) and (2) the FIS Court must consider the NSA information as part of the probable cause consideration if a warrant on the US contact is needed as a result of what the FBI finds.

Simple changes. If this simple logic had been in place before 9-11 the calls the NSA intercepted from Atta and company in the US as they monitored a Yemen target would have led investigators to the 9-11 highjackers, who would at least then been on the radar of intelligence and law enforcement. Prior to 9-11, because the FIS Court refused to consider intelligence from the NSA monitoring of overseas targets as valid threat information, the information gained by the NSA on possible terrorist names and locations in the US was destroyed. Dumb uh?

Well the Dems pretend to want to go back to this myopic and stupid blind position, where a terrorist becomes absolutely free of monitoring once he gets inside our borders. But they don’t really – it is all just a facade. The House passed a supposedly tough bill which would gut the surveillance again by requiring some kind of future sight by NSA to know when a terrorist is going to make contact with someone in the USA. Some others want to keep a list of every US person caught in contact with overseas terrorists – guilty or not. Another dumb and illegal idea, per FISA retention requirements. You don’t want to smear by implication someone who was determined innocent by keeping their good name tied to a terrorist. But some liberals do I guess.

Anyway, the usual DC dance is going on because the Senate will probably pass a Bill more in line with what Bush wants:

This week’s much touted rebuke to immunity-seeking telecommunications companies may be scrapped as Senate Democrats are appearing ever more ready to accede to President Bush’s demands.

Reports are emerging that the Senate is preparing to introduce a foreign surveillance law update that would shield telecommunications companies from litigation or prosecution over their assistance in the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program instituted after Sept. 11.

Based on a tip from the ACLU, Firedoglake reported a draft proposal being quietly circulated in the Senate “does contain legal immunity/amnesty for the telecom companies” that would include any of its actions over the last six years.

From what I read here the plan (which makes sense) is to have the US government take the role of defendent in the cases – since it was at government request the companies did whatever they did. But the point is there will be a left leaning version, a Bush leaning version, and then the committee version which will finally make permanent the policies we have been operating under since 9-11. Policies which have not once violated anyone rights are been abused. And policies that have helped foil numerous terrorist attacks on the US and Europe. And that is the bottom line – the policy is working and protecting lives and no one has been harmed by it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Especially just to gain votes. No American life is worth simply gaining votes from a misinformed base.