Here is a link to The Seattle Times editorial about the Senate passing the FISA Amendments Act. The editorial ran in Sunday's paper.

Here is an interesting little story in the New York Times. Roger Ailes has followed his boss, Rupert Murdoch, into the newspaper business. Ailes, chairman of Fox News, bought the weekly paper in his hometown.

Bad day in the Senate. It passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which clears the way to spy on U.S. citizens without judicial approval. The act also grants telecoms immunity for having helped the federal government spy on citizens. I have yet to find out which senators voted for the act but will be back with more later.

UPDATE: Here is a link to how the Senate voted. Washington senators, both Democrats, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell rightly voted against the act. So did Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A coalition is working to do something about America's dismal broadband penetration, which has been well documented. InternetforEveryone.org wants to connect every American to the Internet with an affordable fast broadband connection. The effort, which is being spearheaded by Free Press, launched its campaign Tuesday.

The U.S. Senate has wrapped up its long debate about a surveillance program used to spy on Americans. This means the Senate will soon, possibly today, vote on the bill, which the House passed last week.

Tired are they who create content of making others money. The folks at news-outlets have long watched their work get scooped up by companies like Google, who turn around and package it with adverting.

Last week a news-outlet did something about it. The Associated Press put the screws to bloggers using AP stories. Brier Dudley had a good column on the AP vs. bloggers story in Monday's newspaper. He followed up the column with a post on his blog looking at what others in the industry are doing about content being used by others for a monetary gain.

Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.

This is how Sen. Barack Obama's statement on his support of the amnesty for telecos bill begins. Wired's Threat Level again has the story.

The House of Representatives passed the domestic spying bill that grants amnesty for telecommunication companies that helped the Bush administration spy on Americans. Wired's Threat Level blog has a good summary with a nice quote from Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island.