President Bush wants Congress to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists.
“This law is badly out of date,” Mr. Bush said yesterday in his weekly radio address.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, provides a legal foundation that allows information about terrorists’ communications to be collected without violating civil liberties.
Democrats want to ensure that any changes do not give the executive branch unfettered surveillance powers.
Mr. Bush noted that terrorists now use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate, recruit operatives and plan attacks. Such tools were not available when FISA passed nearly 30 years ago. He also cited a recently released intelligence estimate that concluded al Qaeda is using its growing strength in the Middle East to plot attacks on U.S. soil.
“Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country,” the president said. “Congress needs to act immediately to pass this bill, so that our national security professionals can close intelligence gaps and provide critical warning time for our country.”
Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, said Mr. Bush was trying to exploit the threat from al Qaeda to push the bill.
The measure is an “egregious power grab that includes broad new powers that have nothing to do with bringing FISA up to date,” Mr. Feingold said.
The 1978 law set up a court that meets in secret to review applications from the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other agencies for warrants to wiretap or search the homes of people in the United States in terrorist or espionage cases.
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Mr. Bush authorized the NSA to monitor calls between people in the United States and suspected terrorists abroad without FISA court warrants. The administration said it needed to act more quickly than the court could. It also said the president had inherent authority under the Constitution to order warrantless domestic surveillance.
After the program became public and was challenged in court, Mr. Bush this year put it under FISA court supervision.
The national intelligence director, in a letter Wednesday to the House intelligence committee, stressed the need to be able to collect intelligence about foreign terrorists overseas. Michael McConnell said intelligence agencies should be able to do that without requirements imposed by an “out-of-date” law.
“Simply put, in a significant number of cases, we are in the unfortunate position of having to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located overseas,” he wrote the committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat.
Mr. Reyes said yesterday that the committee is intently focused on the issue.
“If changes to the law are required, we are prepared to do so,” he said. “We are actively working with the administration on any emergency requirements they may have. However, we want to avoid repeating the mistakes made by rushing the Patriot Act into law.”
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