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The Fine Print On Wiretapping Review
notarus writes "Congress' new bill to 'force' the wiretapping program to be reviewed by FISA has some very doublespeak provisions. One nice line: 'Nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit the constitutional authority of the President to collect intelligence with respect to foreign powers and agents of foreign powers.'"
So, if i'm to understand that correctly, if you use the grey area rule a bit, that can be construed as to allow anyone exemption if they were considered an agent of a foreign power... And terrorists are certainly a foreign power.. so if they wanted to say i'm a suspected terrorrist, then i'm obviously connected to a foreign terrorist cell, and i'm free game for no legal protection? Or am i just missing something....
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
Hoefully this won't pass, but I would almost bet it will.
We can safely bet it will not be vetoed by POTUS!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Blah blah blah...Belongs in politics.slashdot.org, not yro.slashdot.org...blah blah blah...Zonk sucks...blah blah blah...
Nothing in any act (short of a constitutional amendment) can undermine anyone's constitutional authority to do anything. That's what constitutional authority is. Furthermore, Presidential acts tend to get fast-tracked to the Supreme Court, and there's no way in hell that august body is gonna rule against Prez. That's tantamount to treason these days. Nice solid 5-4 with some half-assed whiny dissent paying lip service to Civil Liberties.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Right. God forbid a congressional bill uphold the constitution.
The devil is in the details, and he's plotting busily away.
For one thing the bill allows FISC to issue, not individual warrants, but permission for exactly the kind of driftnet fishing expedition that's never been legal against US citizens.
Then comes the real land mine. If someone does challenge a domestic spying program, this bill says FISC can "dismiss a challenge to the legality of an electronic surveillance program for any reason". Think about that: "any reason". Not "any legal reason", not "any rational reason", not "any reason related to national security". This simply means the court can throw out any complaint without a hearing just because it wants to.
"...foreign powers and agents of foreign powers" makes this sound much better than it really is. Just remember that if spying on "agents" doesn't allow enough abuse to satisfy the people behind this, they'll interpret it as "suspected agents". After that, it will somehow expand to "alleged agents" and then to "possible agents", meaning everybody. Then they'll be able to bug the Democratic Party as before, only this time it will be legal.
Lichtblau says the FISA Court's position would be "unusual". The FISA Court is the ONLY venue that is ALWAYS in the position of deciding whether US persons are legitimate wiretap subjects. It's position is not just not "unusual", it is absolutely required every time.
Anyone who isn't complicit in creating a "unitary executive" from Bush's imperial presidency can tell that SPECTRE is just papering the discarding of Congress as the lawmaking body in the USA.
--
make install -not war
'first post' During which I win out; either the under the GPL. you down. It was EFNet, and apply world wiil have
The quote from the summary reminds me of president nixo... err bush's "signing statements"..
which, though theyre function is supposedly to clarify the intent of laws passed, in the majorify of cases have amounted to "i, bush, do not have to obey this law i've signed"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Hm... how can Congress say that the president may have inherent constitutional authority to spy on Americans when the Supreme Court already disagreed in East District of Michigan v. Nixon? That ruling was before FISA even came into existance, but considering this is about "inherent constitutional authority," FISA's existance can be disregarded in that consideration.
...the great sage (and government employee) Gomer Pyle: "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise."
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
Searching for "Laws fall silent in times of war" led to this page. Putting it in context, barring further violence US politics hopefully will begin to lose some hysteria and in another 5 years and we can get back to more pressing issues such as whether or not such and such president got or did not get a bj and whether we ought to impeach the bastard. And he didn't inhale.
Shh.
i knew the law degree would come in handy some time. ok, sorry, but you guys have it wrong. the quoted language is to clarify that congress is making no attempt to divest the president of the rights he has in that office pursuant to article ii of the constitution. any efforts by the congress to limit the executive powers expressly granted to the president in article ii are illegal because they implicate a breach of separation of powers. along the same lines, the president could not pass a resolution or treaty that would take away legislative powers from the congress. i take no position on the proposed legislation.
I see all the political propoganda going around these days as nothing more than FUD. The text of the bill isn't even in TFA, so without doing some legwork (which I'm sure someone here will do), you really have no idea what is in the bill.
It's certainly within the power of congress to present a bill that would reduce the effectiveness of a previously passed bill.
My take on this is that anything going through congress should be thought through with the mindset that terrorism is not a factor. Terrorism today is like the war on drugs or the war on communism. It never ends and it's a tool used by the powers that be to do things to the citizenry that would under normal circumstances be impossible. If you strip away the fundamental principals of society to deal with a problem, then the solution is worse than the problem.
We are dealing with three things here - 1) we live an an information age society that is fundamentally different than the one's which gave birth to the majority of our laws and 2) we have a general populous that is ignorant of that which makes our society great. The third thing is that political maneuvering is based on a polling structure that encourages answering without any pontification or even any background information. Sure, we would all like to live in a well thought out society, but we can't even force the issue of working in a well thought out environment. We can blame our congressman for making bad decisions, but a better solution would be to become involved to the point where we were helping governmental decision making in general better.
I certainly see that government will always push the limits of it's own power and understand that laws which grant power to the government should be written with a conservative (conservative, not right-wing) mindset. But I also can see that lawmakers have a different perspective than the general populous. They sometimes have a better historical perspective. They sometimes have access to information that the general public does not which factors into their decision making, and they sometimes have motivations completely unrelated to a particular bill that push them to vote one way or another. In the end, they have to live with their decisions just as much as we do. If their track record is so bad, then why is the re-election rate upwards of 90%? Surely it couldn't be pure apathy on the part of their detractors.
> And terrorists are certainly a foreign power
So what foreign power was Timothy McVeigh?
Let's be real. Government WILL wind up with huge amounts of information about us, and the technological means to filter it. Financial transactions, electronic communications, travel -- all of those are trackable in theory, and anything trackable can be stored and mined. Over the next couple of decades, that theory will increasingly become fact.
e n-without-data-privacy/, but it's just a start. A lot more is needed.
We need laws that protect us DESPITE this inevitable progression. I.e., since freedom will lose on the battlefield of what information government has access to, we need to find ANOTHER battlefield where freedom can win. And the only viable candidate I see is to greatly strengthen laws controlling what government can DO with data, even if it possesses same.
This winds up being a system design issue, as tough as the flip-side problem of "How will government integrate all that information to get at it anyway." So we need to start solving it right away, just like the integration problem is already being worked on, then get that solution out into the public consciousness.
I think I've made a good start at http://www.monashreport.com/2006/06/06/freedom-ev
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.
Like you, I'm getting pretty fed up with this excuse for trampling on the constitution and human faces in secret prisons scattered worldwide. While 9/11 was certainly a horrific tragedy, it certainly doesn't represent a threat of such proportions that we need to sidestep the trivialities of the constitution to preserve the continued existence of America.
While it's a completely different conflict, consider the threat that the Civil War posed to the country. 9-11 was baby crap compared to how close America came to disolving during the Civil War.
So, yeah, America has been guided through some spectacularly difficult times by that Constitution. And these neocons who are second guessing the original authors of the document, well, I wouldn't exactly put them on the same shelf of great thinkers occupied by the likes of Ben Franklin.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Before I start, let me say that I voted Badnarik in 2004 over most of what Bush stood and still stands for. That said...
It's not a stretch to argue that the President has a legal obligation under Article IV, Section 4 to prevent intelligence gathering. By definition, anyone who acts as an agent of a foreign power is committing a potential act of war against the United States and is not a mere criminal. If the person is an American, they could be quite justifiably be executed for treason.
Most terrorists are in fact agents of foreign governments. You will be hard-pressed to find a terror group with the power to do serious damage that isn't backed by at least one foreign government. For the President to treat such people as not mere criminals, but rather as combatants is good for us. Why? Because if done right, it doesn't involve tampering with the legal system for even serious criminals. The very fact that we give foreign agents trials at all is a testament to our civility. Many governments would probably quietly shoot such people dead without a trial.
Liberals are, like conservatives, the consummate hypocrites. Where was the left-wing outrage when Clinton pulled 500 confidential, need-to-know FBI files on some of his political enemies? How about the actual massacres at Ruby Ridge and Waco? If you want to point fingers, then point them at the FBI and the powers that be who are unwilling to actually enforce the law and constitution against corrupt presidents like Clinton and Bush. The CIA's efforts against terrorists aren't what should scare anyone. What should scare everyone is the fact that there are no checks and enforcements against presidents who are out of control and that the people simply don't care.
The quote is just boilerplate, designed to save everyone the expense of a court case.
The fact is, nothing in any Act can constrain the executives authority to conduct foriegn intelligence data gathering. That is a prerogative of the Executive, as enumerated in the Constitution, as interpreted (repeatedly) by the Supreme Court. An amendment to the Constitution is required. First, we establish that foreign intel gathering is seperate from domestic gathering for purpose of applying 4th amendment:
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347
Whether safeguards other than prior authorization by a magistrate would satisfy the Fourth Amendment in a situation involving the national security is a question not presented by this case.
United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)
"[T]he instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country."
Let us not forget that the 4th covers people. Surely if seizing foriegners is an Exuctive prerogative to making war, then siezing thier communications is also:
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004)
"The Government maintains that no explicit congressional authorization is required, because the Executive possesses plenary authority to detain pursuant to Article II of the Constitution. We do not reach the question whether Article II provides such authority, however, because we agree with the Government's alternative position, that Congress has in fact authorized Hamdi's detention through the AUMF [the post-September 11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force]. We conclude that detention of individuals falling into the limited category we are considering, for the duration of the particular conflict in which they were captured, is so fundamental and accepted an incident to war as to be an exercise of the "necessary and appropriate force" Congress has authorized the President to use."
Now establish Constitutional authority for Executive to conduct foreign surviellance:
United States v. [Cassius] Clay, 430 F.2d 165 (5th Cir. 1970)
"We...discern no constitutional prohibition against the fifth wiretap. Section 605 of Title 47, U.S.C., is a general prohibition against publication or use of communications obtained by wiretapping, but we do not read the section as forbidding the President, or his representative, from ordering wiretap surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence in the national interest."
United States v. Butenko, 494 F.2d 593 (3rd Cir. 1974)
"In sum, we hold that, in the circumstances of this case, prior judicial authorization was not required since the district court found that the surveillances of Ivanov were "conducted and maintained solely for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence information.""
In 1980, the Fourth Circuit decided United States v. Truong
"For several reasons, the needs of the executive are so compelling in the area of foreign intelligence, unlike the area of domestic security, that a uniform warrant requirement would, following [United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972)], "unduly frustrate" the President in carrying out his foreign affairs responsibilities. First of all, attempts to counter foreign threats to the national security require the utmost stealth, speed and secrecy. A warrant requirement would add a procedural hurdle that would reduce the flexibility of executive foreign intelligence activities, in some cases delay executive response to foreign intelligence threats, and increase the chance of leaks regarding sensitive executive operations."
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review Sealed Case No. 02-001
"The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority
For god's sake, this one should've clearly been filed under Politics.
I've seen too many YRO recently, which clearly didn't have much to do with it.
What's next? Any further developments on Dell's Exploding Battery Syndrome will be YRO because if the laptop explodes then you can't get online?
Sheeesh.....
IANAL, but surely FISA has no business determining if something is constitutional. Specter has come up with a poorly negotiated compromise that weakens two branches of government to the point of being hobbled. I really, really hope that consequences are fully thought out by our congress and senate before they agree to this power-grab. I'm hopeful, not expectant.
If you post it, they will read.
The Legislative body doesn't have that power anyway.
While I think this bill is a horrible infringement of the rights of citizens, I think the example line used in the summary is a poor choice. All that line seems to do is explicitly say that Congress isn't trying to intrude on the President's inherent constituional powers and authority. That line doesn't really say what powers they believe the President has but in the end, even that doesn't matter because its up to the courts to figure all that out. My guess is that someone put that line in for two reasons (no idea if these reasons are legitimate/legally valid... your mileage may vary). First it shows the American people and the President that this isn't intend to hurt the power of th President to fight terrorism. Second it basically says to the court "ya we actually considered the issue of Presidential power and we don't feel we're limiting it". It sorta makes the executive branch challenge it with more than "Its about eavesdropping and they didn't even consider us so they must be taking away our power". I don't know if I'm describing this correctly or even if this is at all legally relavent but that's my thinking.
Errr.... North American, South American, or Central American?
'Nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit the constitutional authority of the President to collect intelligence with respect to foreign powers and agents of foreign powers.' Geez. i know i bought a pocket constitution for dummies, and I read it cover to cover, and I can't find anywhere the "you cannot violate civil rights, unless you say that you say (with a straight face) it was for a foreign power" This must be in the same updated constitution that says the NSA can tap AT&T internet communications of everyone because one person might be using it for a foreign power.
irc.secsUp.Org or
I'd rather have the Nazgûl, of EFF attourneys, represent us, than Senator Spectre, who gives me flashbacks of James Bond's S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Nazgûl Trivia (attourneys): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazg%C3%BBl#Trivia S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Trivia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.P.E.C.T.R.E. With any good fortune, EFF's attourneys will be equally tenacious, as IBM's! White Knight
Can't our esteemed beloved leader Mr. Bush just sign this bill from Congress into law with a signing statement saying that he doesn't necessarily have to follow it?
That's really how things work, right? Check and balances are a throwback to pre-21st century America: they're quaint and cute, but they don't actually apply.
Please don't think that I'm pointing at any particular party or individual. IMHO, they've all been lying down on the job and not supporting us. We have the right and the obligation to choose leaders who will follow our wishes.
Here endeth the rant for the day.
How dare you bring such a "legal analysis". It has no place here, this is Slashdot; a utopian non-RTFM collective.
You thought that law degree would come in handy? Well, it hasn't done a damn thing for your belief in the balance of constitutional powers of the three branches of government. You lost me when you said "I take no position on the proposed legislation". Did you ever think maybe you goddamn OUGHT to take a position? Or has your "law degree" so clouded your ability to discern right from wrong. The Bush Administration has brought a full-scale attack on the fundamental principles that have made the United States a great nation. But you "take no position". You should be ashamed. I mean no disrespect, but you are a worm.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Let me amend, in case your law degree also precludes your ability to discern sarcasm: I do mean disrespect.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It ain't wiretapping - that is, listening in to conversations. It's data mining looking at patterns of calls to and from known terrorist support groups outside of the US with numbers inside the US. There are millions of hours of phone conversations daily here in the US. Who the hell do you think is going to review all of them? And what agency has the manpower to screen every 'Hi Mom/Hi Sweetie/Hello Boss/is the coast clear' call made just to get the one 'the bomb's in the mail' call?
This is supposed to be a news site for IT workers. People who do analysis. People who think logically. Try it folks. If it hurts too much you can go back to being stupid and letting some news outlet selling advertising do your thinking for you.
Just remember if you let someone else dump their agenda into your head, you wind up with shit for brains.
How fortunate.. you lost him right when he finished!
Also, withholding an opinion (until sufficient analysis is done) is better than jumping to conclusions without careful thought, as you seem apt to do. In fact, the OP's point was that many people posting here hadn't analyzed the story correctly and had the completely wrong idea (and yet are still ranting on)
study. [rice.edu] Learn what mistakes at death's door Am protesting it. Its mission is That the project A BSD box that officers. Others the problems Slashdot 'BSD is least I won't this is consistent GAY NIGGERS FROM survey which she had no fear lube or we sell If you have If you don't example, if you took precedence
The President has no constitutional authority to allow the wiretapping program, the doublespeak in the article means nothing. ... Of course since no american judge has the balls to knock down the constitution breaking laws Bush has passed such as the patriot act, Bush is effectively above the constitution. He needs no further authority since you dumbasses won't hold him accountable.
So the arguement is moot.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Wake up, mods, the parent is mot a troll.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
One nice line: 'Nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit the constitutional authority of the President to collect intelligence with respect to foreign powers and agents of foreign powers.'
So, um...what's the whole point of this act, if the President can simply decide that this doesn't apply to what he's doing? Are we just paying our Congressmen to generate laws and paperwork that have no meaning or way for enforcement?
Whatever happened to a system of checks and balances? Geez.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
I'm surpised nobody has posted an EFF link yet. Here's the summary & link from BoingBoing:
Cindy Cohn, EFF's stellar Legal Director, sez, "Senator Specter and the Bush Administration today announced that they have reached a deal to send all of the cases concerning the illegal NSA wiretapping (including EFF's) to the secret FISA court. This is being spun in the press as a big concession by the Administration but in truth it's an abomination -- the FISA court acts in secret and doesn't even hear argument from both sides. This bill will likely move fast, so we only have a limited window to try to stop it. Here's s direct link to EFF's action center to let you write to the relevant Congressional committees."
It takes less than 30 seconds to send an e-mail to your congresscritter, and it's really the least you can do if you really care about this issue.
The parent deserves some positive moderation for the eff.org links.
The bill is S. 2453.
I find it hilarious (dare I say ironic) that I spent a ton of time trying to conclusively ID the bill based on TFA and had no luck. (Spectre sponsored another bill, too, neither of which seemed to have the executive power exclusion thingy.) But then again, I used senate.gov instead of eff.org...
The system of checks and balances remains firmly in place. Congress cannot unilaterally override the Constitution. The language is actually probably boiler-plate to help avoid a Constitutional challenge of the new law.
As for the President we've already seen that the courts can and will override the Executive branch when they claim Constitutional privledges (Hamdan v Rumsfeld). In that case they said "go back to the Legislative branch to get clarifying law, until then we say this is beyond your Constitutional scope of power".
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
A. They don't count our votes.
B. They don't work for us.
C. They ignore the constitution.
D. They probably killed Kennedy and faked 9/11.
E. How is any of this a surprise?
F. Halliburton
G. Profit!
Are these the droids you were looking for?
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to limit the constitutional authority of the President
I bet the first draft didn't have the word "constitutional" in it.
Ok professor, I'm going to play a little devil's advocate here...
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Define "unreasonable" and no, a dictionary answer won't do. You see, that is the problem with the Constitution. It is purposefully vague. What may be unreasonable today may not be tomorrow. There are loads of wiggle room in the Constitution that can allow things like this. And while we are on the subject of the Constitution, what about article IV section 4 that says:
"Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence."
The Patriot Act is IMO in part the enforcement of this article. Congress abdicated its authority to the Executive Branch a long time ago.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
So, if i'm to understand that correctly, if you use the grey area rule a bit, that can be construed as to allow anyone exemption if they were considered an agent of a foreign power... And terrorists are certainly a foreign power.. so if they wanted to say i'm a suspected terrorrist, then i'm obviously connected to a foreign terrorist cell, and i'm free game for no legal protection? Or am i just missing something....
Even worse....
What if you are a Travel Agent working in the US (w/o US citizenship). Or an exchange student whose home country uses 220/240V electricity instead of our 110/120V.
I think that makes you an Agent of a Foreign Power.
Project Vote Smart may be a good place to start (the website interface is a little confusing; if you pick the wrong state you can change it on the left-hand side of the page). Voting requirements are quite different depending on the state you're in. While the information on this website gives you a pretty good idea of what you need to do, you should look up your state's elections website (the link to which should be available on Project Vote Smart) to make sure you've got the most up-to-date information, and feel free to call your local election office with any questions (they can be found on Project Vote Smart if you know what county of your state you're in). The following points are, in my opinion, the most important to look for:
As far as deciding who to vote for, the least-biased sources take the most work to examine. Our next election in November will affect Congress (every member of the House of Representatives and a number of members of the Senate) -- when t
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
You're enabling and supporting an administration that ties people to chairs and beats them?
Once you fall for the Fear Card being played, and toss away Due Process, you are EXACTLY as Evil as any Nazi was, the only differences being the methods and bodycount.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
So in short, you're exactly like the Nazi's except for all the things that made them Nazi's?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
its just that simple. in the 50's there was the mccarthy 'commie hunts'. fix that and the world will be safe again.
...'.
60's had vietnam. fix that and the world will be safe again.
70's had watergate. fix that...
80's and 90's had war on drugs. if we can fix that, all our problems will be solved.
skip to the '00 century and we now have 'war on terror.
and guess what, it won't be won, it won't fix ANY of our problems and next decade (god willing) we'll have forgotton all about this silly gov power-play and we'll have a BRAND NEW chicken-little thing to run around saying 'the sky is falling', etc.
people - there IS no reason to keep giving gov more and more power. give it more power and we seem to get no new returns on our investment. soon, the gov has its fun and then goes off to choose another plaything.
this is just how the world works. and no, nothing got any better for winning or attempting to win any of these 'battles'. because they are not winnable and if it takes 10 or 30 years, we WILL finally realize that.
not everything in life is a 'war on
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
If MS continues the way they are, by then they will be the government.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Duh, read a book. Write a new law if you want the gov't to be unable to monitor you and your friends abroad.
I found at http://www.readprint.com/ ... it's pretty interesting, it's by a chap name of George Orwell ... titled 2006 or some such ...
We need to find the perfect balance between civil liberties and national security. To that end, I propose we let the WoW staff deal with things. NSA too intrusive? No problem. In the next patch, we'll give everyone a thirty seconds surveilance blackout effect on a twenty-four hour cooldown.
The ACLU has taken the Specter bill and has modified the FISA act (using "track changes") to show how the law would be changed by this bill. It is available here:
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/FISA.redline.doc
This is not a compromise and it has no additional restriction on the power of the executive. Every change this bill would make gives more power to the executive. This is potentially more far reaching the PATRIOT act.
It redefines electronic surveillance to exclude routing, addressing, dialing, or signaling which would take the kind of eavesdropping they've admitted to with the phone companies out of the jurisdiction of FISA or any other law. So the gov't would legally and without a warrant be able to constantly track who is talking to whom.
It redefines "Attorney General" to include anyone authorized by the A.G. This is important because it also allows the A.G. to authorized a wide variety of surveillance and allows the A.G. to order electronic communications companies, landlords, and other private parties to aid in the gathering of intel and that private party will have no recourse or right to disclose that the surveillance is taking place. In other words this takes the controversial power that the PATRIOT act authorized to get library records and then gag order the librarians and extends it to your ISP, phone company, and landlord! This power would be held by anyone that the A.G. designates! So it would allow the A.G. to designate Special-Agents-In-Charge in each FBI office to issue their own warrants for domestic surveillance without ever even mentioning it to the FISA court.
It would allow the A.G. to move all lawsuits challenging the legality of surveillance to the FISA court and would allow the feds to introduce secret evidence to prove that the cases should be dropped. The FISA court would be allowed to dismiss such cases "for any reason."
It would give the administration the OPTION (not requirement) to submit entire programs past and present to the FISA court for approval. Note that since it is optional it could potentially give the administration an out for creating domestic spying programs and submit them to no court for approval.
It removes the prohibition against surveilling communications that might include US citizens.
It removes the 15 day limit for unlimited domestic surveillance and physical searches during time of war.
It removes the requirement that the administration tell the FISA court what they are looking for when requesting a warrant, so now they just have to say who, when, and where. Not why or what. How could a judge make a competent decision in a case like this?
It changes the 72 hour emergency grace period to 7 days.
-- QED