Tomorrow morning is the Yearly Kos "Ask The Leaders" Forum where the Democratic Congressional Leadership will meet with the 1,500 progressive bloggers convening in Chicago. The first question they should be asked is why are they caving on FISA? Rachel Perrone reports by e-mail:

Congress could vote as early as TODAY on a bill that many of them haven't even read. According to the most recent proposal we've seen, the new language would permit warrantless wiretapping of Americans so long as they believe the person on the other end of the line is in a foreign country, and/or that the foreign person is the target of the wiretap. I believe - but am not 100% sure - it also contains a six-month sunset provision - which, we know, worked out so well in the case of the PATRIOT Act.

Democrats are preparing to cave on warrantless wiretapping simply because they're afraid of being branded soft on terrorism. Whateverhappened to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?" Well, if that's the case, we ought to be petrified right about now, because it seems the sole motive on the Hill these days is fear. Well, politics and fear.

It goes without saying that this whole situation is about politics, not real surveillance needs. We're hearing that Democrats had hammered out a deal last night with Director of National Intelligence but had that deal voided by the White House. Why? The White House seems bound and determined to take the most confrontational, hard-line approach possible - civil liberties be damned.

Incredible.

It isn't clear whether the bribery prosecution of Rep. William Jefferson will be jeopardized by the FBI's seizure of every document it could find during a raid of his office, in light of a ruling today by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

The three-judge panel unanimously ruled that the search itself was constitutional but that FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business. ... "The review of the Congressman's paper files when the search was executed exposed legislative material to the Executive" and violated the Constitution, the court wrote. "The Congressman is entitled to the return of documents that the court determines to be privileged."

The impact of the appellate ruling will be decided by the district court, which will be tasked with deciding whether papers seized from Jefferson's office and which support the charges against him were privileged legislative materials. It seems unlikely that documents evidencing bribery must be kept privileged to protect "the integrity of the legislative process," but that is a question the district court will need to answer.

More ...

Here's a Catch-22 for you: Laws regulating where former sex offenders may live are so restrictive that, in urban areas, former offenders can find no housing (forcing them, in this famous example, to live under a bridge). But former sex offenders have to register their addresses, and the homeless have no address to register. So if they find a home, they're breaking the law by living too close to (for instance) a park or school; if they remain homeless, they're breaking the law by not registering.

It should be obvious that due process is violated when the government makes it impossible to obey the law and then punishes an individual for violating it, but that hasn't stopped Georgia from prosecuting Larry Moore for failing to register, or from seeking a life sentence against him, all because Moore was homeless.

At least 15 sex offenders have been arrested because of homelessness since the law took effect in July 2006, according to documents gathered through pretrial proceedings in a lawsuit brought by the Southern Center for Human Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Attaturk and Sam Boyd at TAPPED have misunderstood what the problem was with Obama's "nuke" gaffe and what was right wth Hillary Clinton's response. Attaturk writes:

But isn't it rather indicative of sanity to say you "won't nuke" a city in Pakistan "JUST" to kill Osama?

But that is not how Obama said it, and thus Attaturk ignores the problem with Obama's statement. Let's review again what Obama said:

Q: In Afghanistan or Pakistan, is there any circumstance where you would be prepared or willing to use nuclear weapons to defeat terrorism and Osama bin Laden[?]"

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday he would not use nuclear weapons "in any circumstance." "I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance," Obama said, with a pause, "involving civilians." Then he quickly added, "Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table."

(Emphasis supplied.) "Scratch that." Why did Obama say "scratch that" you think? Because he remembered, in the middle of his answer, that it is a bedrock doctrine of nuclear deterrence that you do not discuss how and when you would use nuclear weapons. It may be rational and wise to discuss it as Obama initially did, but in a political campaign, such a departure from doctrine should not come in an off the cuff answer to what was a ridiculous question. Thus, Obama's "scratch that." Discussing it was the gaffe. Policywise I think it is obvious that no one will use nukes in that secenario or, indeed, in any first strike scenario. But the politics demanded something better from Obama. More.

Glenn Reynolds links to Victor Hanson writing:

Apart from the notion that it would be as hard to distinguish civilians in a Waziristan from terrorists as it is in Iraq, which the senator has written off, other questions arise. As a US Senator why not now introduce an October 11, 2002-type resolution, authorizing such an invasion? Or why hasn't he in the past? . . .

It is funny how the Right will defend the notion that the September 18, 2001 AUMF activated Article II in such a way that the Commander in Chief can engage in torture, spy on American persons and do just about anything BUT actually attack Al Qaida. For the record, the President has ample authority to attack Al Qaida in Waziristan based on the September 18, 2001 AUMF:

[T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Via Spencer Ackerman, Sen. Russ Feingold sees the cavein beginning:

Asked whether he would attempt to filibuster any bill that comes up prior to the Senate’s adjournment for the August recess, Feingold said he would prefer to be able to give his stamp of approval to the measure. “But at the moment I’m feeling a little worried that that isn’t going to be possible,” he said. “It’s not moving in the direction that I’m hoping, but I think it might be moving in the wrong direction, in which case the options have to be potentially utilized.”

I can tell you this, if the Democratic Congress gives Alberto Gonzles MORE power to approve warrantless surveillance, then there should be hell to pay with the progressive activists and bloggers. What I want to know specifically is who is supporting the Bush version of the FISA amendment. And if any of the Senator/Presidential candidates is. Senators Obama, Clinton, Dodd and Biden, if you vote for Bush FISA amendment, I hope to gawd you catch hell for it.

In his confrontational interview with Senator Chris Dodd (my guy in the Presidential race), Bill O'Reilly got one right:

O'Reilly ended the interview abruptly by saying that Dodd "was no Joe Lieberman."

Darn straight! And hooray for that! Way to go Senator Dodd.

The entire issue of nuclear weapon use doctrine is now pretty much a foreign policy backwater as a result of the end of the Cold War. When I was in college in the 80s, discussions of MAD, first strike capability, the impact of the MX missile, the INF treaty and the like were very much a centerpiece of foreign policy discussion. And Presidential candidates had their pat answers at the ready.

Today Barack Obama was asked a question about use of nuclear weapons and his fumbling answer demonstrated that he was not prepared for it. I think he has committed a serious political gaffe.

The exchange:

Checking in from Yearly Kos in Chicago.

A few notes: The convention center is massive and between a 1/4 and 1/2 mile indoor walk from the hotel. Getting lost is quite easy.

Try to find someplace other than the hotel to eat. Last night Jane and Pach of Firedoglake and I ate dinner at the hotel restaurant. Drink, salad, small fillet and asparagus: $69.00. (a ribeye or strip steak would have been even more.) The food also took almost an hour to arrive.

On the positive side, Yearly Kos registration was smooth last night. We got canvas bags filled with stuff I haven't had time to rummage through yet, and a 70 page magazine consisting of the schedule,speakers and ads. I'd be lost without it, and if you'd like one, you can download it for free at Yearly Kos.

More...

Why The FISA Amendment?

A special court that has routinely approved eavesdropping operations has put new restrictions on the ability of U.S. spy agencies to intercept e-mails and telephone calls of suspected terrorists overseas, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Russ Feingold has this to say on the proposed FISA amendment:

We need to wiretap terrorists, and we should address the problem that has been identified with FISA with respect to foreign-to-foreign communications. But the administration’s overly broad proposal goes far beyond that and would leave critical decisions related to surveillance involving Americans entirely up to the Attorney General. The proposal from the Democratic leadership is better and involves FISA court review from the start. But it does not have adequate safeguards to protect Americans’ privacy. The bill should also include a 90-day sunset to ensure Congress has the chance to identify and fix any problems with this new proposal

I am beginning to believe that regarding the FISA debate the Congressional Democrats are trying to stake a position unacceptable to the Bush Administration while covering their perceived vulnerability if a terrorist attack occurs during the recess.

The basic proposition is a 90 day approval but no Gonzales doing the review. But what if Bush plays chicken? I suspect, unfortunately, the Dems will crack. They are too fearful of Bush on the question of terrorism. I hope I am wrong. We'll see.

Jeralyn is traveling, but I think she would want to highlight this Richard Moran Op-Ed on bad faith prosecution:

My recently completed study of the 124 exonerations of death row inmates in America from 1973 to 2007 indicated that 80, or about two-thirds, of their so-called wrongful convictions resulted not from good-faith mistakes or errors but from intentional, willful, malicious prosecutions by criminal justice personnel. (There were four cases in which a determination could not be made one way or another.)

Yet too often this behavior is not singled out and identified for what it is. When a prosecutor puts a witness on the stand whom he knows to be lying, or fails to turn over evidence favorable to the defense, or when a police officer manufactures or destroys evidence to further the likelihood of a conviction, then it is deceptive to term these conscious violations of the law — all of which I found in my research — as merely mistakes or errors.

Mistakes are good-faith errors — like taking the wrong exit off the highway, or dialing the wrong telephone number. There is no malice behind them. However, when officers of the court conspire to convict a defendant of first-degree murder and send him to death row, they are doing much more than making an innocent mistake or error. They are breaking the law.

Christy cites from a past NYObserver article:

In all, Mr. Lieberman’s This Week appearance lasted about 11 minutes, and if anything became clear in that time it’s how decreasingly relevant to the national political debate he’s becoming—a decline that not many foresaw last November, when Connecticut’s voters returned him to the Senate, prompting talk that a new power-broker, coveted equally by both parties, had been born.

TalkLeft last November:

What Joe Lieberman has to say on Iraq is simply irrelevant. What Reid, Levin, Pelosi and Murtha say matters from the Congress. And of course what Bush says from the Executive. Joe Lieberman is not part of the conversation.

and this:

Joe will not be relevant unless he breaks his word on caucusing with the Dems.

Just sayin'