Who needs liberty?

Following up on the Democratic-controlled Senate, the Democratic-controlled House approved a revision of the FISA law which President Bush has been violating for several years now.

Let's recap: after 9/11, Congress amended FISA to make it easier to go after terrorists. President Bush praised the law and said he now had everything he needed to find terrorists. Meanwhile, he had authorized the NSA to engage in warrantless surveillance in violation of the law which he praised.

And so now in the face of the President's arguably impeachable offense Congress gives this lawless President (and future presidents) more power to spy on its citizens without oversight.

I'll let Glenn Greenwald take over, as I'm too frustrated to write anything else

It is staggering, and truly disgusting, that even in August, 2007 -- almost six years removed from the 9/11 attacks and with the Bush presidency cemented as one of the weakest and most despised in American history -- that George W. Bush can "demand" that the Congress jump and re-write legislation at his will, vesting in him still greater surveillance power, by warning them, based solely on his say-so, that if they fail to comply with his demands, the next Terrorist attack will be their fault. And they jump and scamper and comply.

What could it possibly take to wake up the Democratic party? In 2006, Democrats campaigned against Republicans by accusing them of being rubber-stamps for the President. And yet when the President directs his very old and very tired rhetoric at them about anyone who doesn't do what he wants is endangering the nation they (not all of them) cower and yield more authority to one of the most unpopular presidents in US history who just so happens to probably be the worst United States president in the history of the universe (hyperbolic, but true.)