What Is This FISA Thing

that I keep yammering about?
Okay, my writing skills and patience have dwindled. I just want you to read my mind.
So, here's the straight skinny from semiloon at Greenwald's site:

You see we already have a mechanism (enacted into law with the original FISA) where telecoms can be compelled to cooperate with the government.

It's called a "warrant."

When a warrant is presented to a telecom to enact a wiretap, that assures the telecom that the requested tap is legitimate and that a judge (a non-elected and presumably non-political entity) decided that there was compelling evidence to issue the warrant.

The problem with "warrant-less wiretapping" is that there is no judicial overview of the process. The government goes to the telecoms and says, "Hey we want to wiretap a whole bunch of communications, maybe millions of people, and by the way we don't have a warrant, but if you cooperate with us (i.e. look the other way) you'll get a bunch of big government contracts that will make you millions of dollars.

The telecoms knew this was illegal because the law clearly requires warrants, but said,"Sure, we'll do this, and we especially like the part of about the millions of dollars, but if the shit goes down, you government guys have got to get our backs so we don't get our asses sued off by all the people we illegally spied on. And oh yeah, we'll kick back some of those millions in the form of lobbyist contributions."

And the government said, "No worries, we'll get your back because if this shit goes south some of us here might go to prison, so we're on the same team."