More Ella Fitzgerald.  Amazing performance of "It Don't Mean A Thing" from 1958.

A heads up for everyone:  At 11:45 am ET/8:45 am PT tomorrow, Caroline Frederickson of the ACLU will be here to chat live about the latest news on the pending FISA-related legislation.  And what you can do to help ensure that the rule of law and the Constitution are taken into account before there is a vote.

Nieman Watchdog has a fantastic post filled with questions that people who inform themselves of the rule of law, the constitution, and the lessons of history might be asking themselves and politicians.  To wit:

...Many basic questions regarding the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program (arguably a program in violation of FISA) and others, for example, Department of Defense operations run through the Counterintelligence Field Activity's now-defunct TALON program, Department of Homeland Security's regional intelligence fusion centers, FBI-organized Joint Terrorism Task Forces and Field Intelligence Groups, have not been answered.

I start with a few excerpts, along with some of my thoughts in brackets, from the Church Committee's Book II, Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, just to emphasize the platitude that the more things change, the more they stay the same:

"Governmental officials—including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law—have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time [reminds one of warrantless wiretapping] and have advocated and defended their right to break the law [reminiscent of Justice Department memos, signing statements, etc., some would argue]."

 "The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities….Congress has failed to exercise sufficient oversight, seldom questioning the use to which its appropriations were being put.  Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts [because of the state secrets privilege invoked by executive branch lawyers, coupled with excessive judicial deference to the executive], and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them."

We don't know the answers to these questions and journalists, the public and, most importantly, Congress—which has the power and duty to compel the answers—need to ask them:

Q. Which governmental agencies [and I would add private entities working on their behalf] have engaged in domestic spying?

Q. How many citizens have been targets of Governmental intelligence activity?

Q. What standards have governed the opening of intelligence investigations and when have intelligence investigations been terminated?

Q. Where have the targets fit on the spectrum between those who commit violent criminal acts and those who seek only to dissent peacefully from Government policy?

Q. To what extent has the information collected included intimate details of the targets' personal lives or their political views, and has such information been disseminated and used to injure individuals?

Q. What actions beyond surveillance have intelligence agencies taken, such as attempting to disrupt, discredit, or destroy persons or groups who have been the targets of surveillance?...

And plenty more where that came from, too.  Not exactly holding my breath that media types will be asking them any Time soon, though.