In recent weeks the battleground of the FISA debate - including whether telecom immunity will be included, and whether Bush will get broad authority to wiretap without oversight - has shifted from the Senate to the House of Representatives. And while the Senate ultimately caved in to Bush's demands, it is - so far - a much different story in the House, where Democrats are showing the kind of fight that was sorely lacking from their Senate counterparts.

The first sign that the House was not going to be bullied came last week when the "Protect America Act" lapsed - the act that was railroaded through Congress back in August, giving Bush broad new powers free from oversight. Democrats were willing to agree to another temporary extension, but Republicans thought that if it expired, they could force Democrats to cave on immunity by arguing that Dems were leaving the nation "vulnerable to terrorist attack." Democrats did not cave to these threats, and so the White House put out a letter claiming that valuable intelligence was being lost because the wiretapping legislation was still pending. But as the Los Angeles Times explained, this was not actually the case:

"But within hours of sending that letter, administration officials told lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees that they had prevailed upon all of the telecommunications companies to continue cooperating with the government's requests for information while negotiations with Congress continue.

A statement describing the change was released Saturday....

One Democratic congressional official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, expressed skepticism that any significant gap had existed, noting that existing rules permit continued monitoring of known terrorists and their associates."

With the failure of that gambit, Republicans have resorted to two other gambits to try and force the House Democrats to agree to immunity and giving Bush new powers: obstructionism and a media blitz. 

Last week Republicans boycotted meetings called by House Democrats to negotiate a final version of FISA legislation. As reported by Congressional Quarterly: 

"Two Democratic aides said Republicans were invited to an afternoon meeting to hash out a compromise between House and Senate versions of the legislation (HR 3773) to revamp the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But none showed up.

Democratic staffers for the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees met anyway, as they had earlier this week, and planned to meet again Friday.

Republican staffers are not participating, because their bosses have objected to holding the negotiations at all. Instead, Republicans want the House to accept the FISA bill passed by the Senate, without change. That measure, passed by a bipartisan 68-29 vote, was drafted with input from the administration and has the support of the White House.

Senate Republicans objected to the appointment of conferees Feb. 14, seeking to force the House to accept the Senate bill. But House Democrats refused, and launched informal negotiations over a final measure."

The other line of attack is a media blitz. As mcjoan at Daily Kos explained, a new group calling itself Defense of Democracies ran an ad targeting freshman Democrats: 

"It's the same false charges, claiming that the lapse of the Protect America Act has meant that "new surveillance against terrorists is crippled." What it doesn't say is that the PAA lapsed because Republicans refused to extend, and even if they had voted to extend it, Bush would have vetoed it anyway. Then there's the whole part about the fact that it's just a lie, that the administration has been forced to admit that no intelligence has been lost and we are thus no less safe than we were before the law expired.

These are the Dems who we know have been targeted: Tim Walz (MN); Joe Courtney and Chris Murphy (CT); Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes (NH); Jason Altmire (PA); Ron Klein and Tim Mahoney (FL); Gabrielle Giffords and Harry Mitchell (AZ); Jerry McNerney (CA); Melissa Bean (IL); Joe Donnelly (IN); Nancy Boyda (KS); Michael Arcuri and Kirsten Gillbrand (NY) ; Steve Kagan (WI)."

One of the targeted Dems, Tim Walz, stood up to this fearmongering:

"This ad is reckless with our national security. Implying that America's surveillance against terrorists is crippled is a lie. What's worse, this group has encouraged terrorists to think our country's surveillance system is weak, when nothing could be further from the truth. Why on earth would any group go on television and claim that America's intelligence agencies can't do their job?"

    As a result of recent court rulings, special-interest lobbying groups like this one now have the ability to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to say whatever they want through paid advertising to advance their political agenda. "

    This lobbying group's so-called 'issue ad' is a new low," added Walz. "Citizens in southern Minnesota aren't fooled by this fear-mongering but they do deserve to know who is behind this shadowy organization and where they are from."

 Defense of Democracies is an offshoot of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a bipartisan group. In response to the ad, most of the Democrats on the board - including Donna Brazile, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Rep. Jim Marshall (D-GA) and Sen. Charles Schumer - have resigned in protest. Brazile called the attack ads "misleading and reckless," the product of a "radical right wing organization that is doing the dirty work for the Bush Administration and Congressional Republican," and that "these types of lies undercut our national security and serve only to divide us."

It's wonderful to see Democrats standing up to Republican bullying for a change. Let's hope that this resilient stance continues, especially in conference committee with the Senate. The House has to fix the mess the Senate made.