Here’s the thing about the Protect America Act of 2007, which expired this past Saturday after the House refused to extend it, despite protests from the Bush administration: Nowhere in the law does it mention “terrorists” or “criminals” — or even “evil-doers.”
It allows communications to the United States to be intercepted without warrant if the sender is “a person reasonably believed to be outside the United States.” Obviously, that can be your mother in England or your brother stationed in Germany or your college junior studying abroad.
It would be nice to believe that our intelligence agencies have better things to do than to track such benign communications, but nothing the Bush administration has done in the past six years has taught us to assume that.
Since Sept. 11,2001, the administration has been intent on gathering as much personal information as it can on every American. Although public outcry forced Congress to cut off funding for the Total Information Awareness program, data mining on private citizens continues under stealthier operations, such as MATRIX and the Tangram project.
It is simply unreasonable to assume that an administration intent on building dossiers on every citizen — to include such things as their magazine subscriptions and grocery purchases — would draw the line at aggressively intercepting electronic communications from overseas.
Let’s not forget what prompted the Protect America Act: It was written to provide political cover for the Bush administration after revelations that it was eavesdropping without obtaining the warrants required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The hastily enacted — and, mercifully, temporary — law gave the feds authority to do what they had been doing without authority since 2001.
Now the president characterizes the law’s expiration as a threat to the Free World, but what threat suddenly arose in 2006 that made this law necessary — except the threat to his credibility?
The Patriot Act already expanded the government’s power to intercept electronic communications, and FISA allows the government to begin surveillance and apply for a warrant later. Law enforcement could hardly ask for a more impediment-free procedure.
Unfortunately, this president has cried “wolf” so often that Americans now turn a deaf ear. That may ultimately be tragic, but this time it is safe; the president gave away his hand.
He is refusing to budge unless the House bill provides immunity for telecommunications companies facing lawsuits from customers whose privacy was compromised.
If Bush truly believed that “our country is now in more danger of an attack,” would he really jeopardize American lives merely to protect the telecom companies? Of course not. His purpose is to thwart lawsuits that would expose the extent to which the administration has spied on innocent Americans.
One of the most chilling aspects of the Protect America Act is that it not only immunizes from lawsuits businesses that cooperate with government spies; it allows “the government to compensate, at the prevailing rate, a person for providing information, facilities, or assistance.”
Given the choice between protecting their customers’ privacy or earning hundreds of millions of dollars in government surveillance contracts, how many telecom companies are going to consider that a tough call?
And even if they don’t want to betray their customers, the Protect America Act seems to give them little choice. According to the law, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general “may direct a person to immediately provide the government with all information, facilities, and assistance necessary to accomplish the acquisition [of information] in such a manner as will protect the secrecy of the acquisition” — as well as the privacy of the person providing it. (Chalk up another traditional right lost: the right to face one’s accuser.)
The immunity and compensation provisions of the Protect America Act essentially transform private telecommunications companies into government-contracted spying operations with no accountability to customers — and from which citizens have no recourse. By no stretch of the imagination can that be considered an act to protect America.
As long as the president won’t compromise, the House is right to protect Americans from the inevitable abuses of this law.
