Good FISA Bill Passes

See UPDATE below.
The House just voted 213 to 197 in favor of the much improved surveillance bill, the most important part of which is that it DOES NOT include immunity from prosecution for the telecoms that cooperated with illegal warrantless wiretapping.
Now Congress goes into recess for two weeks, and during the interim there may be negotiations between the House and Senate on it. Remember the Senate bill was terrible and included immunity.
There's been some procedural stuff happening that I'm too impatient to follow, so whatever goes back to the Senate may be designed by Democrats to do an end run around Republican delaying tactics.
Tone of speculation is that enough Blue Dogs in the Senate may actually go for a bill without immunity as well.
Of course, Bush will veto this and that's okay, because it won't come up again before the election and in the meantime the 38 lawsuits can go forward, presumably exposing the administration's lawbreaking in the process.
Stay tuned.
It's worth reminding ourselves that some companies did not cooperate — Qwest and Bell South. The former CEO of Qwest has appealed his conviction for insider trading, arguing he had every reason to believe when he sold his stock that prices would remain high.
It was only after the feds retaliated against the company by n
ot coming through on expected contracts that the stock sank. Documents from his appeal and another lawsuit adding AT&T to the list of defendants claim that the spy program began in Feb. 2001, long before 9/11.
It's a point worth remembering because most media reports tend to run with the 9/11 connection. Lazy, stupid, dishonest journalism in my opinion.

UPDATE: The Blue Dogs who stuck with the good guys on this are the ones in districts vulnerable to Republican challenges. They face robo calling in their districts and targeted ads pressuring them on this issue. There's a special fund set up to show some support.
McJoan explains more here.