Word from the Senate as debate resumes is that the critical amnesty amendments will be introduced tomorrow and voted on either tomorrow or Wednesday. There are possibly votes tonight, including Cardin's amendment to sunset the law in four rather than six years, which is important because it would ensure the next President would be in office when it was reconsidered and Whitehouse's minimization amendment that would give the FISC oversight over how the government deals with the data it collects--including destroying superfluous data. Hopefully these votes will be postponed until tomorrow, because then we'd hopefully at least have Senators Kennedy and Kerry back on the floor.

Sen. Feingold just spoke on the floor (C-SPAN2) speaking about the importance of external oversight of this surveillance program. He spoke to Newsweek for an online exclusive:

Supporters of the PAA say that if these calls and e-mails were subject to the regular FISA court, it would take hundreds of lawyer and analyst hours to prepare them for the appropriate review.
Listen, a criticism like that just shows no understanding of what's going on here. Every time a foreign conversation runs through a transmitter in L.A., there was an archaic technicality in the law that would require individualized warrants [in order for the government to intercept them]. We all said, fine, we agree with changing that, but in cases when the program ends up impacting Americans, there has to be some oversight.

What's the status of your amendments? It's been suggested that in the consent agreement to allow debate, Republicans are allowing straight majority votes only on amendments they know will fail—including yours.
We're trying to make a record here, and to show who voted for what. My prediction is this thing will go through; it will be challenged and go through the courts. And eventually a Supreme Court with something like seven Republican-appointed judges will strike down the worst parts of it. This is a long-term battle to protect the rights of the American people.

In the modern political climate you're more likely to hear about amnesty with respect to undocumented workers than you are about the amnesty for the phone and Internet companies who helped the government break the law before the act was passed.
Oh, I think there's tremendous feeling that there's a problem here. In some ways I think it goes deeper than immigration. People see their own personal liberties affected. And we've seen that the telecom immunity does offend people. People may be nervous about giving a free pass [on immigration]. But what's gonna bother them even more are the types of things I'm describing here: the level to which their privacy is being subjected to a "trust me" government that impacts their daily freedom and privacy. It really is disturbing to people with any kind of common sense at all.

We know one thing, the reporter has been reading the blogs--his questions, and his discussing the telco issue as amnesty show it. Further demonstration that your involvement and activism on this issue is making an impact.

Feingold is being a realist here, suggesting that his amendments--particularly on amnesty--will fail. That's entirely likely, but as I've argued before, getting as many votes on all of the amnesty amendments as possible is critical. It will strengthen the House's hand in negotiating in the conference agreement, since the House's version, the RESTORE Act, does not contain amnesty. So keep calling your own Senators and also the usual crowd. And, as always, you can follow today's floor action courtesy of the Kossack livebloggers.

Update: One important thing to keep in mind is that simple majority vote rule--which the Feingold/Dodd amendment stripping amnesty will be considered under--means a majority of Senators voting, not 50 votes. So if there are 95 Senators present, we win with 48.