Domestic Spying

The simple truth of the matter is that the Bush administration is not trusted, period.

Too much water under the bridge, so to speak.

What's worse, more and more, of us are wondering, at this point, whom we can trust. Congress? Oh, puleeze!

Trust in this country, for our government, is in stunningly short supply. Is there any wonder?

Wise-up intelligence

Congress has reason to be skeptical, but some White House changes to an eavesdropping law make sense.

May 9, 2007

WHEN THE BUSH White House proposes changing a law that protects Americans from unchecked electronic surveillance, civil libertarian knees begin to jerk. And understandably so.

This, after all, is the administration that for five years eavesdropped on the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens suspected of ties to foreign terrorists without seeking the approval of the special court that was created to oversee such surveillance. The administration complained that the oversight was too restricting, only to discover this year that it could operate within the law after all.

And even as the administration asks Congress to expand its leeway under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the White House continues to insist on the president's inherent power to disregard even his preferred version of that law. No wonder J. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, received a skeptical reception from Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee when he testified last week in favor of "modernizing" FISA. But some of what McConnell requested makes sense. The threat of domestic terrorist attack does require greater flexibility, as do changes in technology. FISA was enacted at a time when most international communications traveled by radio or satellite and thus were outside the law's regulation of wire transmissions; today, those same communications move along fiber-optic cables. Likewise, a court order should not be required just because a phone call or e-mail from one foreign location to another happens to pass through the United States.

The problem is that these sensible adjustments are weighed down by two kinds of baggage: the administration's past casualness about privacy, and language in the "modernization" bill that seems to give past and future eavesdropping on Americans too much benefit of the doubt.

For example, the bill defines "electronic surveillance" governed by FISA as the surveillance of "a particular known person" in the U.S., which seems to exempt the monitoring and recording of communications between a foreigner and multiple Americans. And it would unjustifiably immunize from lawsuits companies that provided the National Security Agency with private records between 2001 and the enactment of this legislation.

As it must do in other areas, the administration will have to negotiate with a suspicious, Democratic-controlled Congress to effect changes in FISA. Part of that bargain should be frankness about why it flouted the law for five years.

Going forward, the administration should consider legislation — such as that introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) — that would give the government greater maneuverability under FISA while reaffirming the law as the "exclusive means" for gathering foreign intelligence when that process could compromise the privacy of Americans.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free

FBI Must Disclose Illegal Spying Documents

This could get interesting.

Wonder how we might find out if we are victims of the FBI's over-zealousness, to put it mildly.

Judge orders domestic surveillance docs public.

“Just one day after a news that an internal audit found that FBI agents abused a Patriot Act power more than 1000 times, a federal judge ordered the agency Friday to begin turning over thousands of pages of documents related to the agency’s use of a powerful, but extremely secretive investigative tool that can pry into telephone and internet records.”

The April request from the Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the FBI to turn over documents related to its misuse of National Security Letters, self-issued subpoenas that don’t need a judge’s approval and which can get financial, phone and internet records. Recipients of the letters are forbidden by law from ever telling anyone other than their lawyer that they received the request. Though initially warned to use this power sparingly, FBI agents issued more than 47,000 in 2005, more than half of which targeted Americans. Information obtained from the requests, which need only be certified by the agency to be “relevant” to an investigation, are dumped into a data-mining warehouse for perpetuity.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Lantern has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is The Lantern endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free