What is the sound one jaw dropping?

Whatever it is, mine made it when I read Glenn Greenwald reporting that

nobody expected, especially after the meek and incoherent appearance of Silvestre Reyes on CNN last weekend, that [the House Democratic leadership] would ignore the barrage of Terrorist-Lover accusations from the President and unveil yet another [FISA] bill that is actually decent and refuses to bestow lawbreaking telecoms with amnesty, but they now have.

The bill - which is now expected to be voted on tomorrow, i.e., Thursday - includes the to-be-favored provisions previously noted by Greenwald and TPMMuckraker's Paul Kiel, but improves on them in a couple of ways, including one fairly clever twist. Greenwald has a summary of the bill; this is my summary of his summary. The bill

- requires the FISC to approve procedures to ensure that Americans are not targeted and to minimize the inadvertent collection of data before surveillance can start, except in an emergency allowing for an immediate start to the spying, in which case the government has 30 days to get approval of the procedures.

- sets a standard of probable cause to get a warrant to conduct surveillance on Americans anywhere in the world and bans “reverse targeting.”

- establishes a National Commission, with subpoena power, to investigate and report on the Shrub gang's warrantless wiretapping.

These are in addition to requiring a DOJ Inspector General report on the warrantless spying program, declaring FISA "exclusivity," setting a sunset date of December 31, 2009 (the same date, Greenwald notes, as the TRAITOR Act sunset provisions), and provides prospective liability protection for telecommunications companies that provide lawful assistance - although why it's necessary to provide liability protection for legal actions escapes me.

The twist, one that Greenwald calls "shrewd," comes in the issue of retroactive immunity. The bill, Kiel reports,

would give the courts authorization to hear the classified material at issue in the case - in essence disposing with the administration's claim of the state secrets privilege.

The "state secrets privilege" - which I have noted before was codfied into practice as a result of deliberate lies to the courts by the Pentagon - enables the White House to keep information away from the courts by arguing that revealing it, even to the judge in chambers, would damage national security. The telcoms have been saying that the reason they need immunity against lawsuits is that the government has asserted that supposed "privilege" in these cases, making it impossible for the poor, beleaguered corporations to present a defense based on government assurances of the spying's legality. The bill would short-circuit Bushco's assertion of the state secrets privilege, removing the roadblock to the suits' continuing.

That is a prospect the Shrub gang will find very distasteful. All along, the bullshit claim has been that telcoms must be shielded from suits to ensure their future cooperation in the face of possible "crippling" lawsuits. However, this bill would enable the telcoms to get the existing suits dismissed by showing they had good reason to believe (or, more exactly, reason to allow them to claim) their assistance with the spying was legal. But it would not necessarily head off what I think the WHS* really fear: not "bankrupting" the telcoms, not damage to "national security," but the discovery process. Discovery that might reveal what the Bushleaguers really told the telcoms, discovery that might reveal what the White House was up to and just how big that "what" was.

So bottom line is that it's better than expected - better, in fact, than we had any reason to expect a week or ten days ago. Personally, I doubt that Pelosi and company suddenly grew backbones; I suspect it was some spirited (read "fierce and stubborn") resistance among the majority of the party caucus - including the statement by 20 members of the House Judiciary Committee rejecting retroactive immunity (full text here) - that produced the signs of stiffening resistance. No matter, be glad there is what opposition there is.

Still, as I said on Friday, this is no guarantee and there is still the business of "ping-ponging" bills back and forth and the opposition of Jay "I can bend over even more if you want me to" Rockefeller to a number of the provisions of the House bill. Meaning the good provisions, of course. That opposition will almost undoubtedly mean the House bill will not survive the Senate and the House will get back a bill with immunity and only pro forma oversight with the expectation the House would pass that on an up-or-down vote.

But maybe it won't work out that way. Greenwald gives voice to something I've been thinking for a while:

At the very least, the more resolution is delayed, the longer this drags on, the higher the probability that amnesty and warrantless eavesdropping can be blocked. ...

All other considerations to the side, the more time that elapses without smooth capitulation to the White House, the better. ... As Bush weakens further, as other issues arise which consume media attention, as House Democrats see that these fear-mongering campaigns no longer work, inertia alone can prevent this from happening.

Or, as I put it the other day,

I do still hold out hope for the scenario suggested by that anonymous Representative on Wednesday:

[I]t could be a long time, if ever, before the bill was brought for a vote [because]

“A lot of people think the politics of doing nothing on this issue are very good for both sides of the political spectrum.”

The GOPpers get to screech about national security, the Dims get to pretend to have backbones, the spooks continue with the tools they already had before last August, which they admit to being adequate, and everybody winks and smiles. The charges drone on, but people are less and less moved by them and each side uses the lack of action to appeal to their base. In short, I think the best-case scenario, and one there actually is a chance of coming about, is stalemate.

With the House misleadership showing at least some signs of being willing to go the mat on this one, that possibility, while still only that, has become somewhat more likely.

But still, again as I said, hope for the best but plan for the worst. Call! Now!

*WHS = White House Sociopaths