What the Senate Doesn’t Know About FISA
” Nancy Pelosi once said that we had to pass Obamacare to see what’s in it. Last week, Congress said we shouldn’t ask what’s in the federal surveillance law even after we’ve passed it.
That’s the most charitable way to interpret the Senate’s votes reauthorizing expiring provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) without any major changes or new checks and balances. The FISA amendments package of 2008 allows the kind of general warrants the Fourth Amendment was intended to prevent, giving the government a blank check for snooping on Americans.
It’s not so much that senators voted by lopsided margins to continue Bush-era warrantless wiretapping nearly five years into the age of hope and change (with the Obama administration’s blessing, of course). More surprising is their lack of interest in how many people are being spied on and how likely irrelevant data belonging to innocent citizens is to be ensnared in terrorism investigations.”
Related articles
- American government extends warrantless wiretapping until 2017 (dottech.org)
- Warrantless wiretaps? Congress votes yes (arstechnica.com)
- Senate Reauthorizes FISA, a Top DOJ Priority (legaltimes.typepad.com)
- Congress Disgracefully Approves the FISA Warrantless Spying Bill for Five More Years, Rejects All Privacy Amendments (eff.org)
- Why We Should All Care About the Today’s Senate Vote on the FISA Amendments Act, the Warrantless Domestic Spying Bill (eff.org)
- U.S. Senate Extends Warrantless Wiretapping Under FISA (newamericamedia.org)
- US Senate reauthorizes FISA surveillance law (jurist.org)
