And indeed, beyond the hyperbole, the Bush administration is articulating a more measured, three-part argument for immunity, based on concerns about fairness, secrecy and future cooperation.

It just so happens that all three parts of this argument are flawed.

This is good coverage of the FISA battle. It ends on a sour note:

Glenn Greenwald blogs for Salon: "The signs are unmistakably clear that what was always inevitable -- full compliance by the House Democratic leadership with Bush's demands on warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty -- is now imminent. . . .

"This is, of course, everything except surprising. No rational person who has watched Congressional Democrats since they took over Congress could possibly have expected them to do anything but what they always do: namely, whatever they're told to do by the White House."

Also, don't miss this entertaining set of questions for the Whitehouse.

Dan Froomkin - Why Immunity Matters - washingtonpost.com

President Bush says the foreign intelligence surveillance program is in the national interest and is legal.

In the video at this link George Bush says "We wanna know who is calling who... from over seas into America we need to know... in order to protect the people... it was legal, and now all of a sudden... plaintiff's attorneys, class-action plaintiff's attorneys, you know [inaudible] try and get inside their head, I suspect they see, you know, a financial gravy train... are trying to sue these companies, just its unfair, it is patently unfair..."

The fact is that if the program that the Bush administration asked the phone companies to assist in was legal, there would be no crime for which to grant them immunity. The fact is that if there is an ongoing risk that the phone companies would refuse to cooperate with the administration without this immunity than the program is still not legal. The fact is that the attorneys at non profit civil liberties organizations like the EFF are not in it for the money.

It is absolutely shameful, in my opinion, that Bush stoops to this sort of patently disingenuous rhetoric, telling these sort of lies about good, patriotic people on national television, in order to avoid taking responsibility for the fact that he has completely undermined and subverted the system of checks and balances that form the bedrock of our society. It was not necessary to undermine those checks and balances to protect America. The Administration had every opportunity to work with the Congress and the courts to build an effective, safeguarded system, and they did not because, fundamentally, they do not believe in these checks and balances. These facts are widely established by Administration insiders.

Assurances from the President that people's civil liberties are respected are absolutely not satisfactory in light of the history of willful abuse of intelligence surveillance powers for domestic political purposes in this country. Clearly, conservative lawyers believe that the balance reached in the 1970's was the wrong one. Even if they are correct, they do not have the right to merely cast it aside without any process or dialog simply because they do not like it! We are a country of laws, and we have a process through which laws are created, and razor thin electoral majorities do not empower Presidents to rewrite those laws arbitrarily as they see fit!

George Bush thinks the Electronic Frontier Foundation sees "a financial gravy train" in spying suits.

Welcome to the Sunday Sales Coalition website. Thank you for supporting our campaign to allow local communities to decide whether alcohol should be sold in grocery and convenience stores on Sunday. This website is designed for the specific purpose of connecting you, the voters with your elected officials. It is your resource for helping convince our elected officials that Sunday sales is an issue that is meaningful to voters, requires their attention, and deserves their support.

vote sunday sales

While several members of his caucus who oppose the bill are counted among the Senate leadership, Farris said it appears that Perdue — a religious conservative who doesn't drink — is the stumbling block. Perdue all but threatened to veto the bill, saying Georgians should show better "time management" if they want to purchase alcoholic beverages by buying them on other days of the week.

Go Chris Farris! This law is stupid and unconstitutional!

Despite public sentiment, Sundays likely to stay dry for now | ajc.com

The Protect America Act, a temporary but expansive warrantless spying bill passed by Congress last summer, will likely expire Saturday at midnight, a casualty of a battle between President Bush and House Democrats over amnesty for phone companies that aided his secret, warrantless spying program and how much of that program should be legalized.

Apparently some in our government have spines.

House Democrats Stand Up To Bush, Refuse to Rubber Stamp Domestic Spying | Threat Level from Wired.com

Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.

Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches - washingtonpost.com

MemeStreams users seemed concerned about a new and apparently randomly enforced TSA policy. It appears that the TSA is listening.

A Win for the Blogesphere

Posters on this blog have had their first official impact on our operations. That’s right, less than one week since we began the blog and already you’re affecting security in a very positive way.

On Monday afternoon we began receiving questions about airports that were requiring ALL electronics to be removed from carry-on bags (everything, including blackberrys, iPods and even cords). This practice was also mentioned on several other blogs and left us scratching our heads.

So…we checked with our security operations team to figure out what was going on. After some calls to our airports, we learned that this exercise was set up by local TSA offices and was not part of any grand plan across the country. These practices were stopped on Monday afternoon and blackberrys, cords and iPods began to flow through checkpoints like the booze was flowing on Bourbon Street Tuesday night. (Fat Tuesday of course).

The way this post was written reminds me of a t-shirt that I really wish I had purchased while it was still available. At least they are paying attention.

TSA credits bloggers with ending new electronics policy.

This is interesting - it seems that a group of artists have celebrated 1-31-07 in their own way and have created a series of political themed LED art sculptures and (you guessed it) placed them all over Boston. Pictured here, Bush & Bin Laden... Click on through to see more images and if you're in Boston the locations are listed to go on an art tour. Get there before the robots do.

MAKE: Blog: LED art all over Boston today

The TSA has a blog! The comments are, of course, where the action is. And of course, the very first commenter is a TSA employee who smack talks the attitudes of passengers.

As a TSA SCreening Manager I want to welcome all those who are viisting this site! I believe it will be a positive force for bridging the gap between the public (which for the most part seems to have forgotten about 9/11) and the TSA which is reminded of it every day.

Another doesn't seem to understand that people have a constitutional right to travel.

As a LTSO I have very proud to work for TSA. I understand that some of the passengers do not like taking off their shoes or surrendering their toothpaste, however, there are many passengers that thank us for what we do. We must all remember that 9/11 happened and we are just trying to make the air safe for everyone. Flying is not a right granted under the Bill of Rights and due to the state of the world today, we must all make smart decisions. I am proud of what we do and what we represent. Thank you Mr. Hawley!!

And of course there are those who put their best foot forward for the authoritarians at the airport, being friendly intentionally to avoid getting hasselled:

I travel quite frquently and follow the rules, take of my shoes etc.. I do it with a smile. I say hello and I thank them....

Just a frequent traveler, my smile gets me far!

All of this says a lot about our society. In my opinion, its going to take more than a blog to improve the public's image of the TSA...

Evolution of Security

...that there is one word for "civil liberties" and another word for "civil rights".

Aren't they really the same thing? In a way, the present usage makes the former sound somehow less important...