MYTH: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act needs to be modernized.
FACT: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been updated more than 50 times since being enacted in the '70s. It was updated as recently as last year.
MYTH: We need warrants to wiretap foreigners abroad.
FACT: Current law allows foreign-to-foreign communications to be intercepted without a warrant. What this proposal is really about is the right to wiretap Americans - without a warrant - who are speaking with people overseas.
MYTH: FISA has not kept up with new technology.
FACT: There is absolutely no new technology that evades FISA. Even the man responsible for prepping and filing all FISA applications, James Baker, head of the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, has said that, "There's no type of collection that's prohibited by the statute." FISA was modernized by the Patriot Act, by Intelligence Reform legislation and by the re-authorization of the Patriot Act - indeed has been updated 50 times since it was enacted in 1978.
MYTH: Congress knows the facts about the NSA warrantless spying program.
FACT: The Senate Judiciary Committee asked for the legal rationale for the program nine times before issuing subpoenas, and still hasn't received an answer due to consistent stonewalling by the administration and the Department of Justice. The American public and their elected senators and representatives do not yet know the full extent of the warrantless wiretapping program and the extent to which FISA has been violated. So why would Congress grant additional power to this administration?MORE:
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/31144res20070731.htmlThere is more to be addressed here than the mere issue of Gonzales-- DEMs have already said they won't give him sole authority in this new phase of things.
It's a shoddy bill so far. The bill is too broad and too vague in some of its definitions, giving BushCO yet more giant loopholes you could drive a whole fleet of Haliburton trucks thru and among other egregious Bush provisions-- wants RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY from lawsuits FOR TELCO lawbreakers back to 2001.
This is a BushCO and Telco amnesty/bailout bill, because Bush has already been struck down and wants Congress to overturn in Congress what judges have already told him he has violated the laws for 6 years.
I respect what Sen Leahy says and does on a lot of matters like these, but you might also want to read Sen Feingold's assessment of the problems with the bill, as well.
It would be very interesting to find out, among other backers, how much Telco lobby money may have gone into this effort and to whom...