ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging FISA

Wired's Threat Level blog reports that the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Recently passed by both the House and Senate, FISA was signed into law on Thursday by President Bush. The ACLU has fought aspects of FISA in the past. The new complaint (PDF) alleges the following: "The law challenged here supplies none of the safeguards that the Constitution demands. It permits the government to monitor the communications of U.S. Citizens and residents without identifying the people to be surveilled; without specifying the facilities, places, premises, or property to be monitored; without observing meaningful limitations on the retention, analysis, and dissemination of acquired information; without obtaining individualized warrants based on criminal or foreign intelligence probable cause; and, indeed, without even making prior administrative determinations that the targets of surveillance are foreign agents or connected in any way, however tenuously, to terrorism."

Comments

us phone = us citizen?

[magarity]

It permits the government to monitor the communications of U.S. Citizens and residents
 
The aclu seems to think that a us phone number confers us citizenship / permanent residency upon the answerer. Since the bill allows instant tapping of calls to/from joe terrorist's known overseas number and some number in the us, it really isn't so unreasonable.
 
The constitution is not a suicide pact; there, I got in my cute truism, now you can post your cute truism like the one about trading freedoms for security is deserving of neither or somesuch.