This morning, upon rising, I checked the news, and was dispirited: the Senate is on the verge of re-extending the FISA fixes without stripping retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies. The last bastion against retroactively legalizing spying is now the House, which passed their version without retroactive immunity. I don’t have a whole lot of hope for the House’s version to prevail.

As Glenn Greenwald succinctly writes, this is what’s now happening:

The Senate today — led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus — will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration’s years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. The long, hard efforts by AT&T, Verizon and their all-star, bipartisan cast of lobbyists to grease the wheels of the Senate — led by former Bush 41 Attorney General William Barr and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick — are about to pay huge dividends, as such noble efforts invariably do with our political establishment.

Why is amnesty needed? You don’t provide amnesty until the facts are out in the open. Unfortunately, that seems to be what’s happening today. To understand the enormity of what’s happening, go back and read all of Glenn Greenwald’s post– and weep for our country.

I’m going off to keep myself busy, and try not to think about this again today…