The Obama Administration threw a desperate new tactic into the warrantless wiretap suits: absolute immunity. It appears to be a probably futile attempt to keep all the cases before Judge Walker from collapsing onto each other.

Both main suits on FISA–the al-Haramain suit and the retroactive immunity suit–are about to go to the Ninth Circuit so that Court can define the meaning of “if” in each case. Obama argues those “ifs” should give his Administration the utmost flexibility to keep secrets–and avoid legal consequences for illegal wiretapping.

EFF came up with a really good response to the telecom claim that the Executive Branch can decide which telecoms get immunity because it’s part of the inherent authority tied to foreign affairs.

EFF’s response? This isn’t foreign surveillance, you dummies, it’s domestic surveillance.