NEWS FLASH

Senate Committee Votes To Extend Warrantless Wiretapping | The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted yesterday to extend a 2008 provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) giving the government expanded authority to monitor U.S. e-mails and phone calls of overseas terrorism suspects. The Obama administration is hoping for a speedy renewal of FISA and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called the commmittee’s move “important.” But some members of the Senate, such as Sens. Ron Ryden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) oppose the extension due to concerns that FISA allows inncocent Americans’ e-mails and phone calls to be monitored without a warrant and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit challenging the law on civil liberties grounds. It is unknown when Congress will vote on the renewal.