Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
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ACLU Sues Over Unconstitutional Dragnet Wiretapping Law
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a landmark lawsuit today to stop the government from conducting surveillance under a new wiretapping law that gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked power to intercept Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls. The case was filed on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose ability to perform their work - which relies on confidential communications - will be greatly compromised by the new law.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed by Congress on Wednesday and signed by President Bush today, not only legalizes the secret warrantless surveillance program the president approved in late 2001, it gives the government new spying powers, including the power to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans' international communications.
"Spying on Americans without warrants or judicial approval is an abuse of government power - and that's exactly what this law allows. The ACLU will not sit by and let this evisceration of the Fourth Amendment go unchallenged," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Electronic surveillance must be conducted in a constitutional manner that affords the greatest possible protection for individual privacy and free speech rights. The new wiretapping law fails to provide fundamental safeguards that the Constitution unambiguously requires."
In today's legal challenge, the ACLU argues that the new spying law violates Americans' rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. The new law permits the government to conduct intrusive surveillance without ever telling a court who it intends to spy on, what phone lines and email addresses it intends to monitor, where its surveillance targets are located, why it's conducting the surveillance or whether it suspects any party to the communication of wrongdoing.
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Full story at link by the American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union filed a landmark lawsuit today to stop the government from conducting surveillance under a new wire... more -
Obama supports FISA legislation, angering Left
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.
In his most substantive break with the Democratic Party's base since becoming the presumptive nominee, Obama declared he will support the bill when it comes to a Senate vote, likely next week, despite misgivings about legal provisions for telecommunications corporations that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program of suspected terrorists.
In so doing, Obama sought to walk the fine political line between GOP accusations that he is weak on foreign policy -- Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called passing the legislation a "vital national security matter" -- and alienating his base.
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Full story at link by Paul Kane// The Washington Post
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Photo by flickr user Barack Obama
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.e... Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by... more -
House OKs update of bipartisan spy law
Bill would allow U.S. to eavesdrop without court warrant
The House put aside more than a year of partisan wrangling Friday and approved an update of the nation's foreign surveillance laws, despite calls from civil libertarians and some lawmakers it doesn't go far enough to protect privacy rights of Americans.
The bill, which the White House endorsed, now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to pass next week.
The bipartisan measure would modernize the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), allowing U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop, without court approval, on foreign targets thought to be outside the United States. It also provides certain retroactive immunity from lawsuits to telephone companies that participated in a post-Sept. 11 surveillance program that operated outside court review.
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Full story at link by Sean Lengell// The Washington Times
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Additional sources covering this story:
Associated Press: "House passes new surveillance law"
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hJKgeE0Z-SivATjok-ut...
The New York Times: "House Passes Bill on Federal Wiretapping Powers"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/washington/21fisacnd....
Wall Street Journal: "FISA Amendments Act of 2008" [fact sheet]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121391360949290049.html...
The Washington Post: "Obama Supports FISA Legislation, Angering Left"
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/06/20/oba... Bill would allow U.S. to eavesdrop without court warrant ... more -
Senate Votes on Surveillance Law This Week
This week, Senators finally cast their votes on amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This is a critical week for the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans — the amendments are the last chance the Senate has to prevent handing the Administration a blank check to spy on you for years to come. This week, Senators finally cast their votes on amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This is a critical wee... more
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Dodd to put hold on FISA bill
This effectively kills the FISA bill, thus allowing lawsuits against the telecoms for participating in NSA wiretapping without a warrant. (editorial comment: hurrah!) This effectively kills the FISA bill, thus allowing lawsuits against the telecoms for participating in NSA wiretapping without a warra... more
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Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
