DNI Admits FISA Surveillance Violated the 4th Amendment

colinneagle writes, quoting Ms. Smith: "It's official; the government's spying efforts exceeded the legal limits at least once (PDF), meaning it is also officially 'unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.' The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) sent a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden giving permission to admit that much. This started with Sen. Wyden requesting that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) declassify some statements regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act enacted by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Although this FISA power is supposed to sunset in December 2012, in May a new Senate bill extended the warrantless wiretapping program for five more years. That vote was regarded as the first step 'toward what the Obama administration hopes will be a speedy renewal of an expanded authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor the U.S. e-mails and phone calls of overseas targets in an effort to prevent international terrorist attacks on the country.'"

Comments

Re:Write you Senators and Congress people

[Dyinobal]

SOPA/PIPA was stopped because of people writing and calling their congressmen but that seems to be the exception to the rule. Any time I write my congressman be it mail or Email, he doesn't change the way he votes, and then he sends me all sorts of campaign propaganda and asks me to donate to him. Ya right..

Re:Exactly how many 3-letter spook agencies are th

[cffrost]

Nowadays, can someone please tell me now many are out there?

Many: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Category:United_States_intelligence_agencies

Note that not all of those entries are for agencies; some are for programs, etc.