[I've been out of the country, being surveilled, and so I'm playing catchup on this one.]

Albert Gonzales gets to determine what's legal:

Under just some of the revisions, NSA can spy on any call you make to or receive from another country (or a place the AG reasonable believes is to/from another country), without a warrant, as long as Alberto Gonzales and the Director NSA claim they reasonably believe it involves “foreign intelligence.” There doesn’t have to be any connection with a foreign power with whom we are war or terrorist group. Just you and your foreign friends is enough. The FISA court may examine the overall process in some undefined, rubberstamp way, but it cannot consider the reasonableness of your individual case. Any pretense that the 4th Amendment applies is gone.

Harry, Nancy: Nice work all around. All those hearings you held on how Gonzales managed the Justice Department really reinforced the country's confidence in him, and I'm glad you're giving him more power.

Oh, and of course the law purports to legalize what Bush has been doing all along:

After telling Congress and the public that the reason they needed to revise FISA was to ensure they could spy on foreign-to-foreign communications that might be routed through US facilities (to close an alleged loophole created by a FISA court ruling that such surveillance required a warrant), the White House went for broke. The New York Times now reports that the Administration actually had very different reasons to make wholesale changes in FISA:

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

. . .

“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.

I called my shot on this, without any real evidence, because it was worst possible outcome I could imagine. Surprise! The Beltway Dems lived up to my expectations!

Reach me that bucket, wouldja, hon? Giuliani, here we come!

I mean, why would people vote for wussy, weak, de-stoned, craven, pissant Beltway Dems when they could vote for real Republicans?

NOTE Please don't throw Nancy's pitiful letter in my face on this. I don't give two shits they're going to "amend" the midnight gutting of FISA. It's a fig leaf. Remember all the AUMF maneuvering to "give the inspectors time to do their work"? Kabuki. Same thing here.