The Federal Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA) is one of those pieces of legislation that most people not only have not heard but due to its technicalities may not care about either. Yet FISA has become the bane of many a civil libertarian's existence not only for the fact that it gives the executive branch unfettered ability to spy on citizens without a warrant. It has become the lightning rod for the kind of "back tracking" legislation that are a step away from a constitutional amendments denying citizens the right to privacy.

In other words, Bush and his administration spent 8 years spying on US citizens illegally. They broke the law and now they're trying to remedy without due process by amending the law in such a way that would allow for the formerly illegal spying, all the while granting retroactive immunity from prosecution to the phone and telecommunications companies and government officials who aided and abetted the Bush administration.

When Barack Obama was running for the nomination, he spent a year saying he wouldn't grant immunity to the telcos. Now he's "flip flopped" on the issue and the civil libertarians of the Democratic Party are angry as hell.

So bloggers from sites like Daily Kos, Open Left, and other sites did what they do best : swarm in political actions online. They have bandied together to literally crash the gates at Barack Obama's party on the web by forming a group at MyBarackObama.com called Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right.

Given that the Obama gives people the tools to easily log into their address books at Google, Yahoo or any other web-based email service, groups at MyBarackObama.com can grow exponentially. Add to that the fact that the sites involved have the traffic to mobilize the first 1,000 it is then not shocking to see that the group has grown to over 10,000 members.

Some people are looking at this as if it is one of the biggest acts of civil disobedience online. I don't believe it is although, granted, it is "revolutionary" but only in the sense that it is the first time this has ever happened because, it is the first time any candidate has had this type of community organizing website set-up.

What is interesting to me is the fact that the Obama people are letting the group grow. It is a damn if you do, damn if you do moment for them. Yet I honestly believe that they look at this as a win given that now they will be able to compile data profiles of the malcontents.

In other words, the "protest" works to Obama's advantage because his people have now the permission from each registrant to be spied (while on the site) by the campaign.

Where do I stand in all of this? I think Obama's making a huge mistake and he shouldn't cave into the surveillance demands of the Bush administration. So am all for the civil libertarians cause.