I commented on this over here, but here's the link to the CNET article, too.

From the article, analyzing the statutory language as it now stands, stuff like this will be immunized:

Let's translate that. A hotel manager who lets FBI agents into a guest's room to copy a laptop's hard drive in secret would not be liable. An apartment manager who gives Homeland Security the key to a tenant's unit to place a key logger in a PC would not be liable. A private security firm that divulges a customer's alarm code would not be liable. A university that agrees to forward a student's e-mail messages to the Defense Department would not be liable. An antivirus company that helps the NSA implant spyware in an unsuspecting customer's computer would not be liable.

No court order is required. And if an eventual lawsuit accuses the hotel manager or antivirus firm of unlawful activities, it'll be thrown out of court as long as the attorney general or the director of national intelligence can provide a "certification." The "certification" is, of course, secret--all a judge may say publicly is that the rules were followed, and then dismiss the case.

And Hillary still can't see her way clear to join Dodd?

And Obama, still mute on this issue?

In so doing, he gave the lie to the fraud that has been perpetrated by Pelosi and Reid that they and the Democrats are "powerless" to stop the war unless they have "60 votes" in the Senate.

-snip-

Dodd, however, is showing that they can prevent bad legislation by being the ones doing the filibustering, and that they then only need 41 votes-something they clearly could muster if the party's leadership were behind it.

So Dodd is testing out this theory on the stinking betrayal of a bill the Democrats have come up with for the NSA. If he succeeds in blocking that bill, he will finally have to put his money where his mouth is, and anti-war bonifides by placing a similar hold on Bush's new request for $46 billion more for the Iraq War.

That in turn would put the Democrats to the test. If, after running a campaign last fall promising they would end Bush's war, and after failing miserably to do so for the past 10 months in power in Congress, they did not support a filibuster against further funding, they would stand exposed as the worst kind of charlatans and fraudsters.

Dodd, meanwhile, just two and a half months ahead of the start of the primary season, has a golden chance to vault himself to the head of the Democratic pack by making a genuine, concrete effort to end the war.

It wouldn't matter if he failed. If Sen. Dodd were to put a hold on funding for the war, and were then to stand in the well of the Senate and filibuster any effort to pass such a bill, forcing his Democratic colleagues to expose themselves finally as being either for ending the war or continuing it, he would be an instant star of the anti-war movement. The 80-90 percent of Democrats who are opposed to the war would stampede to his support. Obama and Clinton, who are in the Senate with Dodd, would be forced to decide whether they wanted to continue to play to the party's right wing and its corporate funders, or whether they would cast their lot with the peace wing.