The Bush administration is pushing the US Congress for retroactive authority to wiretap the telephone calls and e-mail of the citizenry communicating with individuals outside the country. Something the administration has been doing for more than six years.
The Bush proposal aims to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) such that a court order would no longer be needed for a wiretap on any subject “reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.” The proposal also calls for granting the attorney general sole authority to wiretap suspects for up to one year so long as one of the parties is outside the United States.
Opponents to the measure argue that the Bush proposal is nothing more than a revival of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) secret warrantless wiretap program conducted from 2001-05 and maintain that any domestic surveillance must be conducted under a court order. As a result, they are, predictably, being labeled as weak on terrorism and even traitors.
“What the administration is really going after is the Americans. Even if the primary target is overseas, they want to be able to wiretap Americans without a warrant,” Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office, told the Washington Post‘s Ellen Nakashia.
Democrats are willing to compromise with Bush on surveilling communications between a US citizen and someone outside the country so long as the FISA court—not the attorney general—has oversight.
Most disturbing of all is the final two grafs of Nakashia’s Washington Post report:
“The proposal would allow the NSA to ‘sit on the wire’ and have access to the entire stream of communications without the phone company sorting, said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies.
“‘It’s a ‘trust us’ system,’ she said. ‘Give us access and trust us.’”
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