Glenn Greenwald Tells Us (Sadly) That the Specter NSA Wiretapping - Spy on Americans - Bill Much Closer to Enactment

This is so bad on so many different levels:

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted today on various proposals relating to the Specter FISA bill, as well as the other competing FISA bills pending before the Committee. This report from the AP's Laurie Kellman, published in The Washington Post, is completely unclear about what happened, but the gist of it seems to be this:

Senate Republicans blocked Democratic attempts to rein in President Bush's domestic wiretapping program Wednesday amid a sustained White House campaign to give the administration broad authority to monitor, interrogate and prosecute terrorism suspects.

While refusing to give the president a blank check to prosecute the war on terrorism, Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee kept to the White House's condition that a bill giving legal status to the surveillance program pass unamended.

Right. Refusing to give Bush a blank check. Sure. Uh huh.