Finally, A Win

Image credit: National Archives

Dust off that "goddamned piece of paper". It's not quite ready for the recycling bin:

The House just now approved a new FISA bill that denies retroactive immunity to lawbreaking telecoms and which refuses to grant most of the new powers for the President to spy on Americans without warrants. It passed comfortably, by a 213-197 margin

House Democrats reject telecom amnesty, warrantless surveillance

This means that the House and Senate will now have to resolve the differences between the two bills in committee, or the Senate will have to vote on the House bill. Assuming they really want to change FISA.

Kudos to Glenn Greenwald, Firedoglake, and everyone else who's been keeping after this. It's pretty clear that at least a few conservative Democrats changed their minds about whether immunity for the telecomms was a good idea. Whether it was the blogs themselves or all the voters they helped mobilize, that idea didn't come out of thin air, of that much I'm sure.

UPDATE: Forgot to provide a link to the roll call of the vote.