Author Topic: US Senate Passes Wiretap Bill (Read 818 times)

hazel · « **on:** February 14, 2008, 05:37:12 AM »

Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Tuesday ceded to pressure from US President George W. Bush's administration and passed a controversial measure authorizing security agencies to tap foreign telephone calls and emails in the US "war on terror."

By a vote of 68 to 29, the Senate passed the bill, which now moves to the House of Representatives and faces stiff opposition from some Democrats.

After heated debate, the Senate authorized the measure and offered blanket immunity to telecommunications companies for potential violations of US laws requiring warrants to spy on US citizens, a notion the House has resisted.

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have said it was "urgent" to renew and update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) "immediately and permanently" before a key modification from last year expired later this month.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the National Security Agency authorized surveillance without warrants of phone and email traffic between the United States and abroad if in cases that federal agents deemed may have a terror link.

The program, revealed in 2005, caused a public outcry, and human rights experts have argued that US privacy guarantees mean the intelligence agencies should seek court warrants to conduct such spying inside the country.

The 30-year-old FISA was amended by Congress last year to make clear the National Security Agency and other intelligence operations were legally empowered to tap into electronic communications when one or more of the targets is in a foreign location, without first obtaining the permission of a special FISA court.

But Congress set a February 1, 2008 expiration date on that legislation, called the Protect America Act. It was later temporarily extended to February 15.

Cheney has said FISA needed a permanent update to address changes in communications technology since it was first put into law in 1978, including empowering intelligence agencies to freely monitor communications between suspects located outside the United States that are routed through infrastructure inside the country.

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Author Topic: US Senate Passes Wiretap Bill (Read 818 times)

hazel

US Senate Passes Wiretap Bill