I sat through the painful House debates on the FISA deal, so you wouldn’t have to.  My writeup is over at Ars. Possibly my favorite moment of the proceedings is up in the lede: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” Rep Trent Franks (R-AZ) intoned on the floor of the House of Representatives, purporting […]

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One of the things we keep hearing from the apologists for the FISA bill that just passed is that it provides wonderful new protections for Americans abroad. I’m not so sure. (See update—I jumped the gun slightly here.) I’ve run this by some ACLU attorneys I know, who are studying the bill to attempt to […]

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Really, they’re not that strange anymore: Bob Barr and the American Conservative Union have been working with the American Civil Liberties Union to oppose executive overreach for years now. But the “strange bedfellows” narrative is probably helpful insofar as it helps to puncture the notion that it’s only the “far left” that has a problem […]

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Democratic leadership wants you to believe the bill that’s about to pass is a compromise.  Which is funny, because here’s what Republicans are saying about it: Republican leaders described this narrow court review on the immunity question as a mere “formality.” “The lawsuits will be dismissed,” Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican […]

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I allude to it briefly in my Ars piece, but the talking points going around in reply to a New York Times editorial condeming the FISA deal show just how important it is for supporters of the “compromise” that nobody have time to actually read the thing. Here’s what the talking points say: FISA Legislation […]

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The architects of the bogus FISA compromise have, for understandable reasons, scheduled a vote on the bill almost immediately after its unveiling, limiting the ability of the broad coalition opposed to the legislation to effectively mobilize or make use of the impressive amount of cash they’ve raised from online donations. Presumably Steny Hoyer has been […]

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I saw Alex Gibney’s new Hunter Thompson documentary Gonzo last night, along with Dave Weigel, and like Dave, I was a bit underwhelmed. Not that it was bad, mind you—I’m not demanding that two hours of my life back—but it wasn’t nearly as good as it could have been, given the subject. As Dave says, […]

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Somewhat to my surprise, Ross Douthat actually is prepared to defend the claim that for a person in a relationship to look at porn is “equivalent to having an actual affair”: Well, look at it this way: Is there any similarity between “having an actual affair” and having sex with a prostitute while you’re married? […]

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The skinny on the bogus FISA immunity “compromise” over at Ars Technica.

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Creepy, yet you feel vaguely obligated to play until you win.

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