Well, knock me down with a feather: The House actually passed the bill rejecting telecom immunity and virtually unlimited warrantless wiretapping by the government. I can’t put it any better than this summary by Glenn Greenwald (emphasis his):

It is, of course, true that this bill will have a hard time passing the Senate (though if even most Blue Dogs were persuaded to support this bill, why can't most Democratic Senators who previously voted for the Rockefeller bill?). It's also true that even if it did pass the Senate, the President will veto it, and there won't be enough votes to override the veto. So this bill won't become law, but that doesn't matter.

The reality is that the best possible outcome here is nothing -- we lived quite well for 30 years under FISA and if no new bill is passed, we will continue to live under FISA. FISA grants extremely broad eavesdropping powers to the President and the FISA court virtually never interferes with any eavesdropping activities. And the only "fix" to FISA that is even arguably necessary -- allowing eavesdropping on foreign-to-foreign calls without warrants -- has the support of virtually everyone in Congress and could be easily passed as a stand-alone measure.

What matters is not that this bill becomes law, but that the Rockefeller/Cheney bill does not. And House Democrats, including Blue Dogs, are obviously comfortable with defending the bill they just passed as more than sufficient to protect the nation, extend fairness to telecoms, and safeguard basic liberties. So there is no reason why they need to vote for the Rockefeller/Cheney bill, given that they have just done their jobs. That is the real benefit of today's vote.

I can’t help wondering if the news this week that the FBI has continued to misuse its surveillance powers contributed to this sudden outbreak of spine within the Democratic caucus. It’s probably too much to hope this represents the beginning of a rollback of the surveillance state which has been imposed on us over the last six years. And it’s even more improbable that the lawsuits against the telecoms will uncover the extent of the administration’s lawbreaking (which is of course the true intent of the lawsuits and the real reason Bush was willing to “endanger” us by allowing the Protect America Act to expire). But spring is the season of hope, isn’t it?

And we should applaud the Democrats in the House for standing up against a relentless drumbeat of fearmongering from the administration and congressional Republicans, however belatedly. Who knows, maybe it will become a habit.