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House Approves Warrantless Wiretapping Extension
An anonymous reader writes "The House of Representatives voted 227-183 to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to allow warrantless wiretapping of telephone and electronic communications. The vote extends the FISA amendment for six months. 'The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congres.'"
This -does- give full permission to wiretap anybody without a warrent. Anyone can be wiretapped without oversight as long as the claim is made that they are suspected of communicating with said foreign suspects.
There seems to be a lot of ignorance and hyperbole on slashdot regarding FISA.
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- na-spying2aug02,0,5813563.story?coll=la-home-cente r
First, the basics of "FISA". FISA is a statue meant to govern how and when government agencies may gather FOREIGN intelligence. FISA warrants are warrants issued by FISA-established courts authorizing the government to wiretap or survey individuals or phone numbers. A FISA warrant cannot be issued on domestic communications, since American residents and citizens are (yes, still) covered by the United States Constitution's protection against unreasonable search and seizure. So, to boil it down,
Second, warrantless wiretaps are and will always be legal (and constitutional) when both ends of the communication are outside the United States, not American citizens, and no part of the communication is routed electronically through the territorial US. Why? Because such people and communications are utterly outside the jurisdiction of the US Constitution. Think of it this way, should the US have to get a warrant (FISA or otherwise) to intercept a satellite phone conversation between Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri in Pakistan? What jurisdiction does a US court have to rule on that matter? Answer: None.
Third, the legislation in question was needed and rushed in before Congress goes on vacation because of a new ruling by a FISA judge, which had the effect of overruling the NSA's previously established powers under FISA. In other words, a judge decided in a new ruling to overturn the way things had been previously been done. This had the effect of placing our intelligence community in <a panic because it effectively crippled our ability to intercept foreign communications. See this Newsweek article for more info. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20075751/site/newswee
Fourth, the legal issue at hand. The brand new FISA judge ruling concerned the issue of when you know one end of the conversation is foreign, but you don't know where the other one is. In other words, should an unknown second party be assumed to be American or in the US for purposes of foreign intelligence? The new ruling said yes, but previous rulings had said no. For more info on this, see the LA Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la
The concern of the intelligence community was that given the current advanced state of technology and the ability to mask identities, the ruling effectively destroyed the ability of the US to wiretap ANY communication where one side was anonymous.
Maybe that's what some people here on Slashdot want, which is fine to argue. But I hope the discussion is at least conducted soberly and with some attachment to the actual difficult legal and national defense questions at hand.
That's not *entirely* true, though. The bill requires that the AG submit to the FISA court a set of procedures for determining whether a wiretap concerns people located outside the US, and those procedures have to be "in place" when the AG orders surveillance. In addition, if you happen to receive a directive from the AG ordering you to perform some action that fulfills such a surveillance order, you can file a petition with the FISA court to challenge the legality of the directive.
The opportunity for judicial review is minimal, but Lofgren overstates the matter by saying that there are no checks and balances at all.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There are 435 seats in the house of representatives. Of these, 410 voted. To gain a majority from those voting, they required 206 votes. The Republican party controls 202 seats, meaning that if they had voted en bloc, they only needed 4 Democrats to vote with them in order to win. I haven't seen the exact break down of voting for this act, but it's entirely possible that 202 Republicans and 25 Democrats voted for this bill, and 183 Democrats voted against it.
The Democrats only control congress if they all agree. It doesn't take many dissenters to lose that control. We've seen this a few times here in the UK where the party on government has had a very small majority; they've failed to get acts passed because one or two members of their own party decided to abstain, letting the other two parties get the majority vote.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What is does is change the previous definition where Gonzales would have to swear on oath that it is NOT domestic spying, to Gonzales swearing on oath that he REASONABLY BELIEVES it is not domestic spying based on the evidence given to him.
He had this power before, but he had to swear on oath the truth about the spying, now he can swear a lie on oath and simply claim he was misinformed or the evidence given to him was incomplete.
The new wording is this:
"`Sec. 105B. (a) Notwithstanding any other law, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, may for periods of up to one year authorize the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States if the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General determine, based on the information provided to them, that--"
The old wording was this:
"(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that--
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at--
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party; "
I link to the voting record. This should be in the summary in my opinion.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll836.xml
Chances are your congressional Democrats voted against the measure, unlike a single Republican senator and only two Republican representatives.
Democrats currently have 49 votes in the Senate (Senator Johnson from South Dakota is still out sick). That's 11 votes shy of passing legislation -- you need 60 votes to defeat Republican filibusters -- and 18 votes shy of overcoming a Bush veto of any nonevil legislation.
The 41 House Democrats who voted for this measure disgust me -- but 181 Democrats voted no. (Republicans? They rushed to destroy the Fourth Amendment by a vote of 186 to 2.)
In the Senate, the goddamned Republicans were unanimously in favor of this bill. Sixteen goddamned Democrats joined them, and if any one of them represents you I hope you consider it your duty to let them know early, often, and loudly how ashamed you are of them.
But the other 27 Democrats, joined by all zero of their nonevil Republican colleagues, voted against this horrible law.
Am I sick with anger about this? Sicker than you -- but I'm also angry about this "Democrats are totally useless" crap. Don't like how thin and impotent the congressional Democrats are? Don't like how imperfect their leadership is in the face of nearly total Republican evil? Fine, neither do I -- but I think it's a bit less counterproductive to dwell on monolithic Republican evil than the Democrats' failure to achieve omnipotence in the last election, won't you?
I posted five angry letters to congresspeople (and two big thank yous to my good Democratic senator and my good Democratic congressperson) before I came posting to Slashdot. What did you do?