Tonight I came across H.R. 6304: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008 (a.k.a. – FISA Amendments Act of 2008), which you can read here in its entirety. It passed in the House on June 20, 2008.
According to an article in The Washington Post:
The agreement extends the government’s ability to eavesdrop on espionage and terrorism suspects while effectively providing a legal escape hatch for AT&T, Verizon Communications and other telecom firms. They face more than 40 lawsuits that allege they violated customers’ privacy rights by helping the government conduct a warrantless spying program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Under the surveillance agreement, which is expected to be approved today by the House and next week by the Senate, telecoms could have privacy lawsuits thrown out if they show a federal judge that they received written assurance from the Bush administration that the spying was legal.
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin spoke out against the bill, having this to say:
Today, this House seeks to legislatively amend the Fourth Amendment. This bill retroactively denies to Americans the protections of the Fourth Amendment. It retroactively insulates government from accountability for infringing upon one of the most basic rights of Americans.
This infringement is not theoretical. Today there are more than forty pending lawsuits alleging that our government illegally and unconstitutionally violated the privacy rights of citizens by conducting a warrantless spying program. Through this bill, Congress now seeks to deny these individuals a remedy. Moreover, if this legislation becomes law, Americans may never learn the full extent of the Bush Administration’s illegal wiretapping program.
Further, the bill establishes a permanent framework for the violation of the civil liberties of our citizens. This legislation permits the government to conduct mass, untargeted surveillance of communications coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized review, and without any finding of wrongdoing. And it permits only minimal court oversight.
Russ Feingold opposed the bill, saying:
This legislation has been billed as a compromise between Republicans and Democrats. We are asked to support it because it is a supposedly reasonable accommodation of opposing views. Let me respond as clearly as possible: This bill is not a compromise. It is a capitulation.
This bill will effectively and unjustifiably grant immunity to companies that allegedly participated in an illegal wiretapping program – a program that more than 70 members of this body still know virtually nothing about. And this bill will grant the Bush Administration – the same administration that developed and operated this illegal program for more than five years – expansive new authorities to spy on Americans’ international communications.
Mr. President, the railroading of Congress began last summer, when the Administration rammed through the so-called “Protect America Act,” or PAA, vastly expanding the government’s ability to eavesdrop without a court-approved warrant. That legislation was rushed through this chamber in a climate of fear – fear of terrorist attacks, and fear of not appearing sufficiently strong on national security. There was very little understanding of what the legislation actually did.
The bill’s supporters like to say that the government needs additional powers to target terrorists overseas. But under this bill, the government is not limited to targeting foreigners outside the U.S. who are terrorists, or who are suspected of some wrongdoing, or who are members or agents of some foreign government or organization. In fact, the government does not even need a specific purpose for wiretapping anyone overseas. All it needs to have is a general “foreign intelligence” purpose, which is a standard so broad that it covers all international communications. That’s not just my opinion — the DNI has testified that, under the PAA, and presumably this bill, the government could legally collect all communications between the United States and overseas. Let me repeat that: under this bill, the government can legally collect all communications – every last one – between Americans here at home and the rest of the world.
The ACLU opposes this bill, as to be expected:
• H.R. 6304 further trivializes court review by explicitly permitting the government to continue surveillance programs even if the application is denied by the court. The government has the authority to wiretap through the entire appeals process, and then keep and use whatever it gathered in the meantime.• H.R. 6304 ensures the dismissal of all cases pending against the telecommunication companies that facilitated the warrantless wiretapping programs over the last 7 years. The test in the bill is not whether the government certifications were actually legal – only whether they were issued. Because it is public knowledge that they were, all the cases seeking to find out what these companies and the government did with our communications will be killed.
• Members of Congress not on Judiciary or Intelligence Committees are NOT guaranteed access to reports from the Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence, and Inspector General.
This bill was introduced and voted on in the House so quickly that most Americans didn’t even see it coming. Huh. Seems the administration is attempting to keep the public in a constant state of “a day late and a dollar short.”
Newsvine
wakemenow said
Here is Glenn Greenwald’s take on the matter:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/09/fisa_vote/