Oy...

While I've been busy conventioneering, it appears that the House of Representatives passed a really unfortunate surveillance bill. Spencer Ackerman reports on the White House's direct interventions to thwart a compromise and here's Marty Lederman on the bill itself.

Anyways, the Democratic presidential candidates all seem opposed to this, but I'd put the odds of any of them actually taking action to reduce their own powers once in office at approximately zero percent. Then, perhaps, at some point years from now, some story will break about a truly abusive use of these surveillance authorities (just look at what Elliot Spitzer did with the State Police and imagine what uses an oversight-free mass wiretapping scheme could be put to) and there'll be some kind of rollback.