Follow the Bouncing FISA Ball

David Weigel | March 14, 2008

The House Democrats' version of the FISA bill has passed in a more or less party-line vote. The key difference: No immunity for telecom companies that participated in the program.

The House version provides the intelligence community with more than enough tools to adequately monitor terrorist activity, Holt said, before slamming the "relentless drum beat of propaganda … orchestrated by the administration."

Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican, was not convinced.

"We're going to end up in a circumstance here where for the first time, frankly, this refusal to protect our telecom companies … will end up stopping the intelligence professionals from conducting surveillance of foreign persons in foreign countries," Royce said. "Radical jihadists are physically dispersed, but they're united through the Internet."

Much more reason on FISA here.