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The House is working on a bill to replace the "Protect America Act." One really great thing is coming out of this bill.

The Bush administration claims that without retroactive immunity for the telecom companies, who cooperated with past and maybe illegal actions, that these companies will not cooperate in the future.

First a little background. Out government has the ability to get warrants from a secret court to compel cooperation with wiretaps from telecom companies. In addition, the Bush administration has also constantly invoked "state secrecy" to deny the telecoms the evidence they would need to demonstrate in court that they were within the bounds of the law. With all the blow hard bs going on, apparently the Bush administration “forgot” to get such warrants before initiating the wiretaps.

This new house bill will prevent the Executive Branch from concealing its FISA warrants from the court. This will give the telecom companies the access they need to the information required to defend themselves in court. Of course Bush says he will veto any such bill.

Now this puts the ball back in the Bush administration court. They now either have to argue that the courts cannot be allowed to see FISA warrants, or that the true goal is having future telecom coop in illegal surveillance.

I can't wait to see how this turns out.

One of the reasons this bill is turning out to not be a typical Congressional turd, is due to the fact that the American people are putting pressure on Congress to do the right freakin thing. Participate in DownsizeDC.org and help us make “change,” because we don't need a knight in shining armor to do it for us.

Send a message to congress to let them know, “I want NO retroactive immunity for the telecom companies, but I DO want them to be able to present evidence in court that they acted legally.”