Someone in the comments pointed this out... I had missed it, but it's interesting.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted on HR 2082, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Here's the bill description:

To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2008 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes.

It passed, 225 to 197.

As is often the case, Tim Walberg voted No. But that's not the interesting part.

Congressman Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, offered an amendment yesterday.

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
An amendment numbered 10 printed in House Report 110-144 to state that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) shall be the exclusive means by which domestic electronic surveillance for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information may be conducted, and makes clear that this applies until specific statutory authorization for electronic surveillance, other than as an amendment to FISA, is enacted.

In other words, no more warrantless wiretapping by the Bush Administration. For those that have forgotten, President Bush has asserted in the past that the FISA court, which allows the government to secretly conduct domestic surveillance with only a handful of people knowing, was too slow. Instead, the president felt that he was justified in ordering the wiretapping of anyone, anywhere, at any time without a warrant from any court, and without any oversight. We were supposed to trust that he'd only watch the terrorists, of course.

That's my biased explanation, and some out there might disagree with how I characterized the warrantless wiretapping program. But-- here's the thing that has me shocked and amazed-- it looks like Congressman Tim Walberg, for once, agrees with me.

Tim Walberg voted Yes on the Schiff Amendment. A total of 23 Republicans joined 222 Democrats to pass the amendment, 245 to 178. In addition to Congressman Walberg, Michigan Republicans Vern Ehlers (MI-03) and Fred Upton (MI-06) voted to support the amendment.

Although I still think Congressman Walberg should be voted out of office, this was a very pleasant surprise this morning. Thank you, Congressman, for asserting that the executive branch does not have unlimited powers, and that even the president must follow the law.

Now, as long as you're voting like Russ Feingold, there are some other issues on which I'd love to see you embrace the liberal position.

Tim Walberg and Russ Feingold. Heh. I never thought I'd type that.

Labels: 110th Congress, Intelligence, Issues, Russ Feingold, Walberg Voting Record, Warrantless Wiretapping