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Stories tagged with “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act”

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.

Politics

Telecoms provide immunity proposals to lawmakers.

By Amanda Terkel on May 8, 2008 at 11:28 am

Politico reports that telecom companies have “presented congressional Democrats with a set of proposals on how to provide immunity to the businesses that participated in a controversial government electronic surveillance program.” House leaders have not yet accepted the companies’ proposals, and many lawmakers are still insisting that the telecoms be held responsible for participating in the administration’s wiretapping program.

Politics

‘FISA: The Constitution needs your calls today.’

By Faiz Shakir on Oct 9, 2007 at 12:49 pm

FireDogLake’s Christy Hardin Smith is rallying progressive activists to make their voice heard on the new FISA bill, the RESTORE Act. Smith applauds the compromise and says the Progressive Caucus deserves “a hearty thank you for fighting the good fight on this.” “Please make calls today to all of your elected representatives in the House and Senate and tell them this is important to you — and that it is important that they get this right.”

Security

Harman On Need To Amend FISA: ‘Congress Is On Trial Here,’ We Have To Correct Our Mistake

By Faiz Shakir on Sep 19, 2007 at 2:52 pm

This morning, ThinkProgress interviewed Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), the chairwoman of the subcommittee on intelligence within the Homeland Security committee, regarding the Bush administration’s aggressive push for permanent expansive spying powers.

Harman, who has been critical of Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, said he is “devaluing [his] office by being so close to the White House and by carrying messages that in fact — like the German message — don’t comport with the facts.”

Harman said she is working hard to implement changes to the recently-passed FISA legislation, which she said provided a “blank check for the White House…without any effective review.” Harman said her goal is to “instill changes in the FISA law that would ensure a “legal framework applies and nothing can be done outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which provides for checks and balances.”

“I think [Congress] made a mistake,” Harman said of Congress’s passage of FISA changes shortly before the August recess. Highlighting the need to rein in the recent unchecked expansion of power, Harman issued a challenge to her colleagues in Congress:

Congress must act. Congress is on trial here. I think we did the wrong thing in August. We have to correct it this fall.

Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/09/Harmantp.320.240.flv]

Harman urged the need to restore “the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, which prevents searches and seizures of Americans without probable cause.”

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald warns there may be more capitulations by Congress on the horizon.

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