FISA Cloture a sign of rationality from the Democrats

On a vote of 80 to 15, the Senate officially began debate on a sweeping rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, with an eye toward final passage of the bill as early as today. The large margin demonstrated that the bill's opponents -- the American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy rights organizations -- do not have enough support to derail the measure through a filibuster, which Sens. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) had threatened.

"This may be the most important bill we pass this year," said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), an architect of the bill crafted over four months of negotiations between congressional leaders and the White House.

The bill would require that the secret FISA court approve procedures for intercepting foreign nationals' e-mails and telephone calls. Spying on U.S. citizens, including those overseas, would require individual warrants from the same court.

It also would establish the FISA law, and the secret court it created, as the final legal authority on government spying.

Disappointed over his position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the online activists feel jilted and betrayed and have taken to questioning his progressive credentials. One prominent blogger, Atrios, has even given him the moniker "Wanker of the Day."

"He broke faith," said Matt Stoller, a political consultant and blogger at OpenLeft.com. "Obama pledged to filibuster, and he is part of that old politics, in this case, that he said he wasn't. It will spur us to challenge him."

The FISA debate marks the presumptive Democratic nominee's first serious break from the liberal Netroots in the general election. He is still their candidate, but the FISA issue has reignited skepticism among major bloggers, who had largely pushed aside doubts about Obama when Edwards, their favored candidate, ended his bid in February.

Obama's post-partisan persona hasn't always meshed so well with the noisy and contentious Netroots, and his rise to prominence has come without their full-throated support. He told reporters in February that he doesn't read blogs and has long been viewed as cool to the Netroots - a notion that the candidate's new media director, Joe Rospars, disputed this week at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York, saying Obama was a favorite of the readers of the major bloggers.