FISA revision bill passes US Senate

By Michael Fraase

Wednesday, 09 July 2008 08:16PM CST

Section: Law

AT&T: Your world delivered to the NSABy a vote of 69-28, the US Senate today passed legislation to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The bill includes retroactive immunity for the nation’s telecommunications conglomerates and broadens the government’s power to surveil its citizens.

Minnesota’s senators voted predictably: Senator Amy Klobuchar voted against the bill; Senator Norm Coleman for. Hey, Norm! Pay attention on 8 August (more on that later). Klobuchar may have voted against today, but she voted for the measure last month when it really mattered—when the US Senate voted to invoke cloture. Cloture is a parliamentary procedure that prevents a filibuster.

Senator Christopher Dodd‘s (D-Connecticut) amendment stripping the retroactive immunity provision failed by a vote of 66-32. An amendment offered by Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) that would have required assessment by a district court judge to determine the legality of the warrantless wiretapping before immunity was granted also failed by a vote of 61-37. A final amendment, brought by Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico) that would have postponed immunity for a year, subjecting it to federal investigation, failed by a vote of 56-42.

Eric Lichtblau, writing for the New York Times, reports that Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-Missouri), vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “there was nothing to fear in the bill ‘unless you have Al Qaeda on your speed dial,’” in closing arguments.

Indeed.

Lichtblau calls the measure “the biggest restructuring of federal surveillance law in 30 years.”

The legislation, which passed the US House of Representatives on 20 June, will likely be signed immediately into law by President Bush. It calls for the dismissal of more than 40 federal lawsuits which charged the US telecommunications giants—including AT&T and Verizon—with conducting illegal warrantless wiretaps at the request of the Bush administration. All that’s required under the legislation is that the phone companies received “formal requests or directives” to implement the wiretaps from the Bush administration; the existence of which the administration has already acknowledged.

Under the new law, US intelligence agencies will be able to seek wiretap warrants for broad groups of foreign subjects and will be allowed to wiretap foreign nationals for up to seven days without a warrant in “exigent” circumstances in which national security information would otherwise be lost. American citizens can be wiretapped without a warrant for up to seven days under certification by the attorney general of a probable cause link to terrorism.

It’s now up to the US Supreme Court to find the revisions to the original FISA legislation unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, the US government’s domestic surveillance of its citizens continues apace, but under much tighter cover. “There’s virtually no branch of the U.S. government that isn’t in some way involved in monitoring or surveillance,” Matthew Aid, an intelligence historian and fellow at the National Security Archives at The George Washington University told Bradley Olson, reporting for the Baltimore Sun.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (D-Illinois) was previously adamant in his opposition of the legislation granting retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies. In a 180-degree pirouette and total reversal, Obama voted for the bill. By way of contrast, former Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton (D-New York) voted against the bill.

Yesterday, activists from opposing poles of the political spectrum announced a political action committee (PAC). Named the AccountabilityNowPAC, the organization is designed to hold politicians—including Barack Obamba—accountable for capitulating on warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity for the telecoms.

AccountabilityNowPAC was formed by Ron Paul supporters BreakTheMatrix.com, Rick Williams, and Trevor Lyman as well as Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher of firedoglake.com. The group plans a moneybomb on 8 August (the anniversary of Richard Nixon’s forced resignation). Donation pledges—up to the maximum allowed of US$5,000—are accepted between now and 8 August. On 8 August, everyone who pledged to donate all make their actual contributions on the same day—the moneybomb day. All that money donated and collected on one day tends to send a powerful and straightforward message to politicians. The message that AccountabilityNowPAC intends to send is simple: we will settle for nothing less than constitutional governance.

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