A new plan by House Democrats to govern the way U.S. intelligence officials eavesdrop on phone calls would require increased oversight of surveillance tactics but permit some warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.
Congressional Democrats want to rewrite the foreign intelligence surveillance act, known as FISA, in a way that shows they are serious about protecting U.S. citizens from terrorism while also preserving their civil liberties. Democrats are still smarting from the heavy criticism they received when Congress passed a short-term measure, just before the August recess, that granted broad, warrantless eavesdropping powers to the National Security Administration.
That measure, authored by the Bush administration, expires in February, and Democratic House leaders have pledged to rein in the law, which they say gives NSA officials excessive powers to intrude on the privacy of U.S. citizens.
“Not only is our bill better than the bill we passed in August, it’s better than the original FISA bill in protecting our civil liberties,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday.
The bill updates the 1978 FISA law so intelligence officials can eavesdrop without warrants on calls that travel over U.S. telecommunication lines between foreign countries.
The legislation would require the Justice Department’s inspector general to present quarterly audits to Congress on information collected by intelligence officials. The FISA courts would have to approve year-long “blanket” warrants that would allow eavesdropping of foreigners outside the United States.
But Pelosi may have a hard time selling the plan to some of the more liberal House Democrats, who oppose any bill permitting eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without a warrant.
The bill would require a warrant for listening in on the calls of citizens on U.S. soil, but only if they are the target of an investigation. Intelligence officials would not need a warrant to eavesdrop on calls between foreign terrorism suspects who happen to be talking to U.S. citizens not targeted by an investigation.
“From a policy perspective, there is no reason an American citizen should be subjected to warrantless eavesdropping,” said Timothy Lee, a technology policy expert at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Top aides to Pelosi say they inserted the provision allowing for some warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens because National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell said investigations of potential terrorist threats would be greatly hindered without it.
