 |
|
New misgivings on wiretap law
Some Democrats regret updating FISA to expand the NSA's ability to tap American calls.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the August 22, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 2
Washington - The administration's warrantless wiretapping program looks set to be the subject of renewed and bitter wrangling between Congress and the White House when lawmakers return to Washington in September.
And this upcoming battle promises to be far more complex than a run-of-the-mill dispute over an agriculture bill, say, or tax legislation. The law in this area is unusually dense and difficult. The underlying activity is classified. One of the key administration figures dealing with the issue is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, an official in whom many in Congress have little trust.
"Essentially, it's a difficult situation to have a rational conversation on the merits," says Benjamin Wittes, an expert on national security law at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The expanded snooping powers of the National Security Agency (NSA) have been controversial ever since they became public in 2006. To critics, the program opens the door to the possibility of dangerous infringement on the civil liberties of US citizens. To supporters, they're a necessary tool against terrorism in an era of cellphones and Internet communications.
At issue now is the temporary update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) passed earlier this month, just before Congress fled Capitol Hill for its summer break. This update was made necessary when the secretive judicial body that oversees the wiretapping, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, banned eavesdropping on foreigners whose communications were being routed through the United States.
The legal update, which expires in six months, allows the NSA to resume siphoning such communications. In one of its key changes, US intelligence no longer needs to know that at least one of the parties to a communication is abroad prior to eavesdropping. It needs only to "reasonably believe" that one person is off US soil.
In the weeks since this bill's passage some Democrats have begun to regret the manner in which it was approved. They feel the vote was held in haste, with summer break looming. And they've started to worry that by changing just a few words in a massive piece of law they've opened the door to practices they did not intend.
Some civil liberties experts believe that the US may now be able to gather a wide range of information from US citizens on home soil without a warrant as long as it bears upon the monitoring of a person thought to be overseas.
RSS feed
