I talked to Representative Barbara Lee's office, because she's chair of the Progressive Caucus, who took such a strong, principled, effective stand for Constitutional government, as opposed to Steny Hoyer's never-introduced abomination, permanently gutting FISA and the Fourth Amendment.

What Lee's staffer said was that they had taken no official position on any bill (i.e., not on the Conyers RESTORE bill), but that they would support a bill from Rush Holt, were it to be introduced.

See Greenwald here ("the bill to be proposed today by the House Democratic leadership actually contains some surprisingly good and important provisions") and over at Big Orange ("a strong bill"). And I did notice that the Times article had no quotes from Democrats, despite the horrific headline ("Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers").

UPDATE The real issue with the Conyers/Reyes bill is that it doesn't meet the Fourth Amendment test of "particularly describing" the thing to be seized. ACLU:

Called baskets, buckets or blankets, the new warrants created by the Protect America Act, and maintained in some form by the RESTORE Act (Conyers/ Reyes) are most commonly known as "program" or "general" warrants that have been held unconstitutional for violating the Fourth Amendment. They may have a new name this go-around, but they are the same program warrants believed to be used the in the President's illegal spying program after 9/11 and codified in the FISA modernization bill introduced by Rep. Wilson that Democrats opposed in the 109th Congress.

The Fourth Amendment has several requirements before a search or seizure is constitutional -- that a judge is involved, that there is probable cause, that the search or seizure is reasonable and most important for this discussion -- the things searched or seized have to be stated with particularity. Particularity was written into the Fourth Amendment due to past abuses by King George, whereby the government would issue blank warrants that allowed government officials wide discretion to rifle through personal belongings or search people, without particularized suspicion, to look for anything illegal. No description was actually given of the illegal behavior that was being investigated, because the government was on a fishing expedition. This abuse of power was one of the injustices that led to the American Revolution. Statutes and even individual searches and seizures have since been held unconstitutional in the past because they violate the particularity requirement.

The Protect America Act and the RESTORE Act allow the government to issue these broad program warrants that state neither the targets of the search, nor the facilities that will be accessed. They do not describe what is going to be seized, and eventually used, by the government. They are virtually a blank check that only requires the surveillance be directed at people abroad, which may very well be unconstitutional.

Better does not equal good.