Al-Haramain

Glenn has a lucid and thorough explanation of the Al-Haramain ruling. The money points:

Article II of the U.S. Constitution does not give Pres. Bush the power to violate the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Glenn notes that the judge in this case, Judge Vaughn Walker, is the third federal district judge to so rule.
The central premise for immunity — that telecoms acted in good faith, having been assured by the Bush administration that their requests for warrantless surveillance were legal — is false, because Judge Walker has already ruled against this claim.
The claim, made by congressional Democrats supporting the new FISA bill as well as by the telecoms themselves, that classification issues prevent the telecoms from proving their innocence, is baseless, because the original FISA — the one that’s been on the book for 30 years — includes a specific procedure for dealing with classified information.
The so-called “exclusivity” clause in the new FISA bill is a sham, because that exclusivity is already established in the current FISA legislation. Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, in short, are “presenting as a ‘gift’ something you already have, and telling you that you should give up critical protections in exchange for receiving something that you already have — namely, a requirement that the President comply with eavesdropping laws.”

Liberty Street