Some Potentially Good News

Apparently, Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold are preparing an attempt to filibuster the FISA bill when it reaches the Senate floor. Harry Reid has also signed on to Dodd’s retroactive immunity-stripping amendment as a cosponsor and announced in a speech last night that if necessary he would delay voting on the bill rather than prevent Senators from leaving for their July 4th holiday. Dday at Digby’s bloghad this to say about the procedural developments:

This is honestly the best we can hope for right now. Sens. Dodd, Wyden and Feingold are ready to filibuster and gamely trying to get colleagues to do the same (Sen. Dodd’s speech tonight was a bravura performance), but realistically the numbers to stop cloture aren’t there. However, that could change if the delay continues. And getting this to the recess means being able to get in a lot of Senators’ faces on their trips back home. In addition, there’s going to be a very short window in August where a ton of must-pass bills have to get through Congress, and throwing FISA in with that mess means that anything can happen.

These delaying tactics keep open the window for counter-FISA organization. Glenn Greenwald’s campaign continues to raise money and calls to Senators may yet convince enough of them to support the anti-immunity amendment or (less likely) to support the filibuster that this can be stopped. It’s not a lot of hope, but these are signs that grassroots opposition to this bill has begun to have an effect. The question is whether that effect will have enough time to grow.

Harry Reid Gears Up For Political Theater

Harry Reid, who has filed a cloture motion on the current FISA bill, setting up a vote on Wednesday, wants to appear opposed to at least some parts of the legislation. He says he will try to arrange separate votes on the main bill and on the retroactive immunity provisions, while hinting that he might oppose the legislation if immunity passes with it. The problem? He’s already planning to fail and use the fact that he “tried” as political cover for not opposing the bill at all. In Senator Reid’s words:

“I’m going to try real hard to have a separate vote on immunity,” Reid said in an interview to be aired this weekend on Bloomberg Television. “Probably we can’t take that out of the bill, but I’m going to try.”

Let’s not forget as well that a separate vote would allow Senators (like Obama) who are nominally opposed to immunity to vote against it while voting for the main bill; immunity provisions could then easily be added in later during negotiations with the House over the final version of the bill to be sent to the President. It’s all a theatrical set-up designed to allowed Democratic leaders to claim they oppose the worst portions of the bill without actually showing leadership or taking risks.

Even worse, all of the Senate’s political theater as well as most of the pressure coming from the liberal blogosphere and elsewhere focuses on the retroactive immunity provisions. Sadly, that’s only a small part of the larger picture; H.R. 6304 includes provisions authorizing warrantless physical searches of Americans. Further, the increased accountability that Democrats are claiming as the positive side of the bill is illusionary. It exists at the president’s pleasure and so means nothing in practice.