Very Important Development

This is pretty important as these are major players in the conservative movement. It will very interesting to see what the misadministration does. Do they stick with their "swiss cheese" excuses and try to let this blow over like so many of the other outrages they have managed to bury or do they admit that they screwed up and allow the process of investigation proceed as it should. Bush is losing key supporters at a rapid rate and it will be interesting to see this develop. The wingnut right will probably continue to bluster and fume and parrot the lame and patently false justifications that Rove feeds them but the hard core conservatives are getting worked up. The obvious upside here is that this insures that no one can seriously point to this issue as a strictly "liberal" trumped up issue.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances (PRCB) today called upon Congress to hold open, substantive oversight hearings examining the President's authorization of the National Security Agency (NSA) to violate domestic surveillance requirements outlined in the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, chairman of PRCB, was joined by fellow conservatives Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR); David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Paul Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, in urging lawmakers to use NSA hearings to establish a solid foundation for restoring much needed constitutional checks and balances to intelligence law.

"When the Patriot Act was passed shortly after 9-11, the federal government was granted expanded access to Americans' private information," said Barr. "However, federal law still clearly states that intelligence agents must have a court order to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans on these shores. Yet the federal government overstepped the protections of the Constitution and the plain language of FISA to eavesdrop on Americans' private communication without any judicial checks and without proof that they are involved in terrorism."

Here is the link
Thanks to Atrios and Kos