FISA BS Part V: Summary

This is the last in a five part series, but consider it a "read me" post.

The four parts below are in inverse order, so read the oldest one first.

I should also note here that I have failed miserably in documenting my sources. It is late at night, and I had a lot of things I wanted to say, and so I didn't want to stop every third line and put links in. (plus I know my readership, and I think probably click-throughs on the links are relatively rare.)

So, you can either trust me (inadvisable), or go look this stuff up on your own. To that end, here are a few links:

Balkinization (this link is to the main page, there are many posts about this, all highly detailed)

The "Protect America Act" (it's not very long, for all the damage it does)

Comments from Glenn Greenwald (some other helpful links in here too)

NYT Editorial (they meander a bit (and some of their facts are off as noted below), but seem to mostly get it)

WaPo Editorial (about the same as NYT)

I guess the only other thing I want to say is that I really hope that you (and everyone, for that matter) are as outraged by this as I am. This kind of issue (infringement of essential rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution) isn't the type of thing you can really reach out and touch. It doesn't, as yet anyway, affect you as much day-to-day as, say, gas prices, health care, or a host of other things typically influenced by government policies. But I hope people will nevertheless understand the importance of this issue in particular, and how abominable it is that this is happening, right under our noses, in plain view, cloaked only in transparently false rhetoric, designed only to convince the dumbest and least curious, and to confuse the rest of us just long enough to succeed.