The Electronic Frontier Foundation has responded to Senate passage of the FISA Amendments Act.

"It is an immeasurable tragedy that just after its return from the Fourth of July holiday, the Senate has chosen to pass a bill that betrays the spirit of 1776 by radically expanding the president's spying powers and granting immunity to the companies that colluded in his illegal surveillance program," said Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "This so-called compromise bill represents a shameful capitulation to the overreaching demands of an imperial president. As Senator Leahy put it in yesterday's debate, the retroactive immunity provision of the bill upends the scales of justice and makes Congress and the courts handmaidens to the White House's cover-up of its illegal surveillance program."

The full article is here.

Here's info on the vote.

I'm happy to see that Senator Durbin voted contrary, but I'm deeply disappointed in Senator Obama. With all of the emails out there portraying him as Un-American, this vote is the first evidence that I've seen to support the notion. There can be no legitimate excuse for this vote. It's a shame and a disgrace.