Wow, I came into work today to find that Congress had been working during the weekend. Shocking. So what was this most pressing issue that had our lawmakers working on a Saturday? Why it was to quietly and quickly further erode our civil liberties.
The Bush administration went to Congress a couple of weeks ago, pushing for further “modernization” of FISA. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA for short, was enacted in 1978 in order to protect Americans against government spying by regulating how information could be collected. I say "further 'modernization'" because the so-called "Patriot Act" of 2001 had already significantly weakened the protections in FISA. Apparently that was not enough. The Bush administration threatened to keep Congress in session if they didn't comply. Lo and behold, the "Protect America Act" of 2007 sailed through the Senate on Friday and the House held a special session on Saturday to follow suit, voting 227-183 in favor of emasculating FISA and the 4th amendment. Not a single hearing was held. (Click here to see how you representatives voted.)
The White House claims that FISA is outdated because it needs to be able to speedily intercept phone/email conversations involving individuals “reasonably believed to be outside the United States.” Maybe. But the effect of the legislation that was just passed is that the administration can now wiretap any domestic-to-foreign conversations, on American soil, without warrants. This would include the ability to tap your weekly conversation with your Russian grandmother, for example, if the NSA decided that it was suspicious.
As the Washington Post said: This [FISA modernization] is as reckless as it was unnecessary. Democrats had presented a compromise plan that would have permitted surveillance to proceed, but with court review and an audit by the Justice Department's inspector general, to be provided to Congress, about how many Americans had been surveilled. Democrats could have stuck to their guns and insisted on their version. Instead, nervous about being blamed for any terrorist attack and eager to get out of town, they accepted the unacceptable.
Being a Washingtonian, I can understand the urgent desire to leave this concrete swamp in the hot and humid month of August, but must our lawmakers sell us out just to get away from some discomfort? They have air-conditioning after all.
