”Intelligence is the lifeblood of our ability to defend ourselves,” he said. Moments later, he added: “Are we to believe that the Fourth Amendment applies to the entire world?”

For example, an authorization targeting “al Qaeda”—which is a non-U.S. person located abroad—could allow the government to wiretap any telephone that it believes will yield information from or about al Qaeda, either because the telephone is registered to a person whom the government believes is affiliated with al Qaeda, or because the government believes that the person communicates with others who are affiliated with al Qaeda, regardless of the location of the telephone.

After four years, you’d hope that some basic information or parameters of such a massive spying program would be divulged to the public, or at least your rank-and-file member of Congress, but they haven’t.  Only a small handful of members have either personally attended classified briefings or have staff with high enough clearances to attend for them.  Sen. Ron Wyden—who has been on the Senate Intelligence Committee for years—has even been stonewalled by the Obama administration for a year and a half in his attempts to learn basic information about the program, such as the number of Americans who have had their communications intercepted under the FAA. 

Yet the House ambles on, ready to rubber stamp another five years of expansive surveillance that can pick up American communications without meaningful judicial oversight and without probable cause or any finding of wrongdoing.  Instead of blind faith in the executive branch, every member of the House should demand that the administration publicly disclose the following before proceeding with reauthorization:

Copies of FISA court opinions interpreting our Fourth Amendment rights under the FAA, with redactions to protect sensitive information (the Department of Justice can write summaries of law if necessary);

A rough estimate of how many Americans are surveilled under the FAA every year;

A description of the rules that govern how American information picked up by FAA surveillance is protected.

Can you believe that 435 members of Congress who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are about to vote on a sweeping intelligence gathering law without this basic information?

'House' is a very popular television show in America and the UK. I first started watching the show at the beginning of the summer. One of the things that I really liked was the beat of the into music. I did a search for it and found out that it was 'Teardrop' by Massive Attack. I found it on Amazon.com and purchased it. Woot!

After a few days, I went back and purchased more of their music, and some of the suggested music from groups like Thievery Corporation. I'm a rocker at heart, so this kind of music was really a change for me. I've probably spent about forty bucks on this kind of music in the last two months. I'm pretty into it and so is my hubby so I plan on buying more. Not to mention the people who have heard it in my home or vehicle and liked it.

So the new season of House has just began and it has a different but equally compelling theme song. I went to try and find it to purchase it. It turns out that it's not a full song. It's just a short clip called 'House' by composers Scott Donaldson and Richard Nolan, written specifically for the show.

Apparently, they'd had an awful time trying to license 'Teardrop' in the UK and said screw it. They made their own. It's now the theme for the US and the UK. And the next person to go searching for that neat genre will be disappointed because you can't purchase that clip and that clip doesn't lead you to any similar music. Not to mention the loss any of funds they would have received for the US show.