Hillary's statement on FISA:

One of the great challenges before us as a nation is remaining steadfast in our fight against terrorism while preserving our commitment to the rule of law and individual liberty. As a senator from New York on September 11, I understand the importance of taking any and all necessary steps to protect our nation from those who would do us harm. I believe strongly that we must modernize our surveillance laws in order to provide intelligence professionals the tools needed to fight terrorism and make our country more secure. However, any surveillance program must contain safeguards to protect the rights of Americans against abuse, and to preserve clear lines of oversight and accountability over this administration. I applaud the efforts of my colleagues who negotiated this legislation, and I respect my colleagues who reached a different conclusion on today's vote. I do so because this is a difficult issue. Nonetheless, I could not vote for the legislation in its current form.

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Update: Hillary voted against the motion to invoke cloture and the bill, Obama voted for both. It passed 72 to 26. The cloture roll call vote is here. The votes on the final bill will be available here shortly. All votes this session are here.

Via the ACLU (no link yet but check here soon):

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 was approved by a vote of 69-28 and is expected to be signed into law by President Bush shortly. This bill essentially legalizes the president’s unlawful warrantless wiretapping program revealed in December 2005 by the New York Times.

On the bill:

[T]he Senate passed an unconstitutional domestic spying bill that violates the Fourth Amendment and eliminates any meaningful role for judicial oversight of government surveillance.

“Once again, Congress blinked and succumbed to the president’s fear-mongering. With today’s vote, the government has been given a green light to expand its power to spy on Americans and run roughshod over the Constitution,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “This legislation will give the government unfettered and unchecked access to innocent Americans’ international communications without a warrant. This is not only unconstitutional, but absolutely un-American.”

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Update 12:17 pm ET: The Dodd-Feingold Amendment fails by a vote of 32 to 66. Specter's Amendment will be voted on in 2 minutes. It needs 60 votes to pass.

Update 12:37 pm ET: Specter Amendment fails by a vote of 37 to 61, and is withdrawn. The Bingaman Amendment vote will take place in 2 minutes.

Update: 12:54 pm: Bingaman amendment vote: It fails 42 - 56. Obama and Clinton and good Dems vote for it. Lieberman votes against it. Surprise, Sen. Salazar (CO) votes for it (he voted against the other two Amendments.) Senate goes into recess until this afternoon.

The Senate is voting on the first of three amendments to the FISA bill. It's the Dodd Amendment stripping the bill of the telecom immunity provision. You can watch on C-Span here.

The Dodd Amendment needs 50 votes to pass. Both Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton just voted for the Amendment.

Via Greenwald, uber Obama supporter Lawrence Lessig writes:

[P]olicy wonks inside the campaign sputter policy that Obama listens to and follows, again, apparently oblivious to how following that advice, when inconsistent with the positions taken in the past, just reinforces the other side's campaign claim that Obama is just another calculating, unprincipled politician.

The best evidence that they don't get this is Telco Immunity. Obama said he would filibuster a FISA bill with Telco Immunity in it. He has now signaled he won't. When you talk to people close to the campaign about this, they say stuff like: "Come on, who really cares about that issue? Does anyone think the left is going to vote for McCain rather than Obama? This was a hard question. We tried to get it right. And anyway, the FISA compromise in the bill was a good one."

But Lessig is a "true believer" in Obama:

That is what a Democratic Congress, with the support of the Democratic nominee for President, will do today:

Efforts to confront President Bush over electronic surveillance laws likely will end abruptly in the Senate, with the White House the clear winner and Democrats dropping the fight until a new administration takes office. . . . Christopher S. Bond , R-Mo., said the bill ended up being essentially what Bush wanted. “There really is not much that is significantly different, save some cosmetic fixes that were requested by the majority party in the House,” said Bond, who strongly supports the bill.

(Emphasis supplied.) Way to go Dem Congress! You have truly earned your 9% approval rating.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Yesterday, Barack Obama said:

Obama blamed criticism from "my friends on the left" and "some of the media" in part on cynicism that ascribes political motives for every move candidates make. "You're not going to agree with me on 100 percent of what I think, but don't assume that if I don't agree with you on something that it must be because I'm doing that politically," he said. "I may just disagree with you."

I do not believe Barack Obama. I will go further. I do not want to believe him. Because the alternative is worse. Because if Obama believes the BS he said about the FISA Capitulation bill, then he is not fit to be President. More . . .

Today Tomorrow the Democrats in DC, led by the nominee of the party, will capitulate to the 23% approval rating Bush led GOP on FISA. The NYTimes Ed Board writes:

Congress has been far too compliant as President Bush undermined the Bill of Rights and the balance of powers. It now has a chance to undo some of that damage — if it has the courage and good sense to stand up to the White House and for the Constitution. The Senate should reject a bill this week that would needlessly expand the government’s ability to spy on Americans and ensure that the country never learns the full extent of President Bush’s unlawful wiretapping. The bill dangerously weakens the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

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Yesterday, Barack Obama issued a defense of his support for the FISA Capitulation bill. I want to associate myself with the response of Glenn Greenwald:

The new FISA bill that Obama supports vests new categories of warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President (.pdf), and allows the Government, for the first time, to tap physically into U.S. telecommunications networks inside our country with no individual warrant requirement. To claim that this new bill creates "an independent monitor [to] watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people" is truly misleading, since the new FISA bill actually does the opposite -- it frees the Government from exactly that monitoring in all sorts of broad categories.

I also want to associate myself with the words of Justice Louis Brandeis on the subject of liberty:

Like Jeralyn, mcjoan has a good analysis of the just released Al Haramein v. Bush opinion by Judge Vaughn Walker of the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The NYTimes has the news points. But mcjoan makes a great point about the significance of the opinion to the current Dem capitulation on FISA:

[T]his opinion should shame a Democratic Congress which has been absolutely negligent in its duty of oversight over the executive. [ . . ]

The faculty and students who walk the beautiful grounds of Vermont Law School are paying a price for their principles:

The Vermont Law School is one of two law schools in the nation that bar military recruiters, as a protest against the 15-year-old rule that prevents openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the military. As a result, the school is denied some federal research money — $300,000 to $500,000 a year by one outside analyst’s estimate.

Repealing the Solomon Amendment should be on the list of tasks to accomplish within the first 100 days of a Democratic presidency.

To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

This is Obama now:

My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people."

Can you say "willing to say or do anything to win?" Or if you prefer, the "new" politics.

Speaking for me only

Via ThinkProgress:

Unfortunately, the FISA compromise bill establishes a process where the likely outcome is immunity to the telecommunications carriers who participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program. Sen. Reid remains opposed to retroactive immunity, which undermines efforts to hold the Bush Administration accountable for violating the law. Thus, he will cosponsor the amendment offered by Senators Dodd and Feingold to strip out the immunity provision, and support their efforts to strip immunity on the floor.

Reid will put forward the legislation but it seems he will vote against cloture.