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Don't you just love how, whenever a liberal figure or a non-Fox media outlet (also known as "the liberal media") is caught in any kind of screwup or criminal activity, it quickly becomes the No. 1 Topic of Discussion at Fox?

But when right-wingers are caught with their pants down (e.g., see John Cornyn) or in the criminal cookie jar, there's some minor mumbling, a few quick reports, and then silence at Fox.

So we watched Fox yesterday to see how they would handle the news that their beloved Hot Young Investigative Journalist, James O'Keefe, Slayer of ACORN, had been arrested by the FBI for attempting to wiretap the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu.

There was a brief report on Shep Smith's news show (in which the reporter assured us that we would need to get some context first), followed by a similarly brief overview on Special Report with Bret Baier, and then wrapped up a short segment on Greta Van Susteren's show, in which she mentioned that O'Keefe had appeared on Fox "many times."

But on Fox's prime-time opinion shows, its big ratings drivers, the shows that had most avidly promoted O'Keefe and his brand of "investigative journalism" -- Glenn Beck, The O'Reilly Factor, and Hannity -- there was nothing. Not. A. Single. Word.

Color me surprised.

This is certainly good news. I don't know if it has a snowball's chance in hell of passing, but you never know:

Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced today that they will introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act, which eliminates retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly participated in President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.

“I believe we best defend America when we also defend its founding principles,” said Dodd. “We make our nation safer when we eliminate the false choice between liberty and security. But by granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies who may have participated in warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, the Congress violated the protection of our citizen’s privacy and due process right and we must not allow that to stand.”

Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said, “Last year, I opposed legislation that stripped Americans of their right to seek accountability for the Bush administration’s decision to illegally wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Today, I am pleased to join Senator Dodd to introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act. We can strengthen national security while protecting Americans’ privacy and civil liberties. Restoring Americans’ access to the courts is the first step toward bringing some measure of accountability for the Bush-Cheney administration’s decision to conduct warrantless surveillance in violation of our laws.”

“Granting retroactive immunity to companies that went along with the illegal warrantless wiretapping program was unjustified and undermined the rule of law,” Feingold said. “Congress should not have short-circuited the courts’ constitutional role in assessing the legality of the program. This bill is about ensuring that the law is followed and providing accountability for the American people.”

There was an article in The Hill the other day about Rep. Jane Harman's plight:

Tangled in wiretap, opposed by left, Harman could face tough primary

Anti-war forces and liberal bloggers have despised Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) for years, and now they smell blood in the water.

Harman has taken plenty of heat from her left flank over the years for supporting the Iraq war and President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. And now that she’s in some political trouble for allegedly offering favors on a federal wiretap, her detractors might just have the ammo they need.

Already, 2006 primary opponent Marcy Winograd has opened an exploratory committee and others are also making their interest known. Plus, bloggers are talking about recruiting one of the their own to challenge Harman.

Experts say the congresswoman looks OK right now, but the situation remains fluid.

That is all pretty much correct, but then Aaron Blake had a bit of other news in the story.

Howie Klein, the Southern California-based author of the DownWithTyranny blog, said the new revelations could help change that.

“When Marcy ran the first time, it was a really tough road for her, because people didn’t understand,” Klein said. “Even on a really great website like Daily Kos, there were a lot of people that didn’t understand.”

Klein said a group of bloggers met earlier this year to discuss challenging Harman in a primary, weeks before the recent revelations. He said many in the blogging community would like a fellow blogger, John Amato, to challenge Harman and that Amato is considering it.

I wanted to confirm to my readers that I am considering running for Jane Harman's seat. I've had meetings with bloggers and activists way before this story broke and they have urged me on. I've also been contacted by established campaign managers who have won elections which included huge upsets in the past that have expressed a serious interest in managing my campaign. This is a very important step in the process. At this point I am considering it, but haven't made a decision yet. I'm going to take my time before I decide, but I thought I owed it to you to confirm this report.

Now back to our regularly scheduled content.

I don't know about you, but I always thought they were spying on Congress members, so this doesn't come as a complete shock. (Oh, and Spencer Ackerman does the legwork to narrow the field.)

The big story of the day will be this one in The New York Times reporting that the National Security Agency intercepted private emails and calls of Americans beyond the limits set by Congress.

But this detail buried in the article is particularly interesting. Seems a member of Congress was under surveillance:

And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact — as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 — with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman’s conversations, the official said.

The official said the plan was ultimately blocked because of concerns from some intelligence officials about using the N.S.A., without court oversight, to spy on a member of Congress.

Really? Note that there was an active attempt by the NSA to wiretap a member of Congress. Who was it? Seems worth finding out.

All Spin Zone: John "Doubletalk" McCain fails the political courage test.

Collateral News: Remote controlled bugs are the Pentagon's latest attempt to spy on terrorists. Wait a few years and this new technology called 'Hybrid Insect Mems' or 'Hi-Mems' will be in the hands of domestic law enforcement flying around your living room.

The Strange Death of Liberal America: In March the Pentagon released a report that included some alarming findings on the rate of suicide among American troops in Iraq.

Elizabeth de la Vega: Bush's OSHA: No laws, no crimes

TBogg: Put your hand in the puppet head

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Six Pulitzers for WaPo, two for ex-LATers and a triumph for investigations...Richard Cohen has a race problem...Mad Kane's advice for biased journos and bloggers...Russert plays Altoona...Greenspan and our business media ignored reality...The Seattle Times discovers poor people ...Get ready for Round 2 in the Internet's Battle Royale of 2008...Reporter Eric Lichtblau on the WH efforts to kill the NYT's '04 warrantless wiretapping story...Chris Matthews Sucks!...New media: a lot like the old media...As Gitmo trials near, the Pentagon limits what can be reported...

Beautiful agitprop/freeway blogging from The Billboard Liberation Front. That's right, kids, it's not a photoshop.

What's up with this "compromise" on FISA? The Senate has split it into two equally bad bills, one of which includes Telecom Immunity. ACLU:

With a House vote on domestic spy legislation rumored to occur within days, there are reports of a plan to split the two titles of the terrible bill passed by the Senate that gutted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The Senate bill contains almost no Fourth Amendment protections in its Title I, and its Title II contains immunity for telecommunications companies that illegally aided the president’s warrantlesss wiretapping program.

ACLU also has a letter to congressional leaders re FISA, that you can send online here. They also have radio spots they'll be airing in markets where they think it will make a difference.

How can the Senate even consider a bill which leads to further deterioration of privacy rights when they found out just this morning that "the FBI improperly used national security letters in 2006 to obtain personal data on Americans"? Wired's Ryan Singel has more...

PERRspectives caught this lovely little bit of Republican propaganda coming from a network utilizing public airwaves:

In a single sentence in one story on religion in the United States, CBS Evening News managed to insult the vast majority of the American people. Describing a major new study on Americans' religious faith from the Pew Forum, CBS' Wyatt Andrews suggested that atheism in particular and Americans' widely shared belief in a secular society in general is immoral:

"The unprecedented survey of religion answers many concerns about a secular, morally void America."

Yup, because we know how moral those religionists have been. Darrel Plant found more:

(F)rom The Katie Show:

BOB ORR: At issue is whether or not telecommunications companies like Verizon and AT&T should be protected from lawsuits when they help the government tap conversations of suspected foreign terrorists - when those calls and emails are routed through the U.S.

Actually, the issue is whether retroactive immunity will be granted to telecoms so they can't be sued by Americans, for illegally participating in wiretapping American citizens in America.

Snuggly Bear explains warrantless wiretapping. (h/t Scarce)

I stole this post from Nicole. Fiore had a great animation way back in 2004 when the White House was using terror alerts to play the fear card and disrupt the election. Good Old Tom Ridge admitted as much too.

Finally, some common sense. How uncommon.

ACLUblog:

In a 12th-hour plea today, key members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee urged their fellow members to reject telecom immunity when legislation “updating” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) heads back their way after the Senate passes its bill. The letter, sent by Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Congressmen Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), really expresses the frustration felt by the committee and is a definitely worth a look.

The letter says, in part:

By tying the question of lawsuit immunity to questions of national security and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reform legislation, the President has created a false choice for Congress. The issue of immunity for phone companies that chose to cooperate with the President’s warrantless wiretapping program deserves a separate and more deliberate examination by Congress. No special urgency attaches to the question of immunity other than the present Administration’s general eagerness to limit tort liability and its desire to avoid scrutiny of its own actions, by either the courts or the Congress.

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

If you're interested in the latest wheelings and dealings regarding FISA (there were several votes taken this last week), emptywheel is the blog to go. Marcy has been covering it extensively and exhaustively.

Just another example of Bush's rampant deficit spending. Fiscal conservatives, indeed.

In all seriousness, although not stated explicitly, these wiretaps all appear to be in this country--I'm curious to know whether these cases followed the FISA guidelines and what justifications they had to tap. Of course the FBI would never release the information, but it would be interesting to know.

UPDATE: The ACLU wants to know how much national security has been jeopardized because the FBI can't manage their checkbook.