Quote Originally Posted by TevashSzat View Post
The thing is, the Democrats' majority within Congress is not that great. They could try to pass laws that will restrict the president's power and such, but the thing is that even if they get a majority to vote for the bill, the president will simply veto it and there would be no way for the democrats to override the veto. Furthermore, politics will make it even harder for even most democrats to vote for many bills of this type since it will get spun and politicized.

For the Democrats to have really done a ton to oppose the Bush administration, they would have had to have a greater majority than they do now. Since they don't and thus, many votes may be close, all we end up having is a lame duck presidency and congress
The president can't veto articles of impeachment. If the president is breaking the law with his actions and orders to executive branch agencies, the rule of law should apply. If the president tries to introduce a law that is unconstitutional, Congress should reject it. The FISA amendment was not necessary, all Congress had to do was... nothing. The president can't veto nothing. Sometimes, nothing is the best course of action.

I still fail to see what was wrong with the original FISA requirements. A (essentially) rubber-stamp court for national security measures, but where requests to tap politicians and public figures would be frowned upon. At the time of the amendment vote, we already knew about abuses with NSLs and other shenanigans. It was glaringly obvious that the executive could not be entrusted with no-oversight powers. So, of course, we give it more.