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Intent of Surveillance Key in Senate Bill
You can say this for the Senate intelligence committee's surveillance bill: it goes to some length to guard against "reverse targeting" -- that is, tapping foreigners' communications into the U.S. when the real intention is to target a U.S. person, thus circumventing warrant requirements. The bill repeatedly bans the "intentional" targeting of U.S. citizens' communications without warrants.
For instance, the bill says the NSA "may not intentionally target any person known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States," nor can it "intentionally" target a such a person "if the purpose of such acquisition is to target for surveillance a particular, known person reasonably believed to be inside the United States."
Should the surveillance happen to target such a person, though, the collection can probably stand, unless the FISA Court finds -- after the fact -- that the procedures resulting in such accidental surveillance were unreasonable. However, as anyone who's ever watched a sporting event knows, lots of reasonable plans result in the opposite outcome from the one intended. And that doesn't mean the game stops.
Comments (18)
Andrew wrote on October 19, 2007 3:08 PM:Senator Dodd has a vedio up at You Tube, or you can head over to www.firedoglake.com If this bill isn't re-written, he will filibuster and now has the support of Russ Feingold. Go Dodd!
mikeconwell wrote on October 19, 2007 3:19 PM:re: Sen Chris Dodd's hold and filibuster
The Young Turks radio show this morning says that Obama announced he will back Dodd in this, haven't seen documentation yet.
lambert strether wrote on October 19, 2007 3:40 PM:Word from AAR has it that Saunders will support a filibuster as well. Wish there was a list somewhere. If only I had interns....
markg8 wrote on October 19, 2007 3:53 PM:This "oops accidently on purpose tapped the wrong side of the call"
rmwarnick wrote on October 19, 2007 3:59 PM:provision looks like it's gonna make a mess. I'll bet that's exactly what Cheney wants. He and McConnell will have their minions push the edge of the envelope and dare any FISA judge to sqawk. Seeing as they've already been painted as Osama's handmaidens by the right I doubt any are going to be willing to rule on the side of law.
Any terrorist worthy of the name has stopped using phones and e-mail by now. From what I've read, they put messages on obscure web pages. This whole debate would be meaningless except that IMHO the Fourth Amendment still means something.
workaday joe wrote on October 19, 2007 4:08 PM:rmwarnick says "Any terrorist worthy of the name has stopped using phones and e-mail by now."
I think this really is the point of the opposition. This bill does not really fight terrorism and is all about Executive Branch power. I was naive enough at one time - earlier this week in fact - to believe that whoever came after Bush would be able to reverse his power grabs. But I think what I'm realizing now is that though these people may be ABLE to reverse his damage, they just won't do it. Power is too alluring to even the best of us. Congress are the only people who can stop this. That is true whether Bush or Hillary (or pray Obama) are in office.
Douglas Watts wrote on October 19, 2007 4:11 PM:I trust the President to do the right thing. And if he or she does not, that's why we have elections.
/snark
dhs wrote on October 19, 2007 4:13 PM:All the spin and disinformation about the revisions to the FISA bill, and what they mean and don't mean, have created a total distrust of any action at all on FISA.
The actions of the Democrats in recent weeks make it clear they are more concerned with political attacks from the right than with preserving the Constitution.
Kudos for Senators Dodd and Feingold for standing up on this issue.
In my opinion, any revision of the FISA act should be COMPLETELY off the table until the next Administration and Congress. This Administration and this Congress have lost all credibility.
litigatormom wrote on October 19, 2007 4:42 PM:What crap. The bill permits the violation of U.S. persons' Fourth Amendment rights so long as the violator claims he didn't "intend" to target him. This sounds just like yesterday's Mukasey testimony that "waterboarding is torture if it's torture."
Jay Rockefeller was supposed to be better than former Intel Committee Chair Pat Roberts. At this point, I think Rockefeller's title ought to be changed to "Imbecility Committee Chair."
Bill wrote on October 19, 2007 4:54 PM:Pardon me for being cynical, but I hardly believe that the NSA and friends will abide by wiretapping laws when technology makes it so tempting to break and government secrecy prevents any prosecution if they do break the law. No US Attorney has ever brought such a prosecution against anyone. They would reveal too many secrets in the process of doing so. Let's also not forget the alleged warrantless detentions and renditioning of prisoners to other countries for torture. If they're willing to commit the criminal act of facilitating torture, then illegal wiretapping is child's play.
M M wrote on October 19, 2007 4:58 PM:First rule of legislation is "do no harm". Why don't we punt on this until the next administration with a Dem in the White House instead of allowing the intel services for the next six years to do what they want as long as they don't intend to torture or eavesdrop on Americans? They picked 6 years cause the Republicans figures they will be back in the White House after the 2012 elections.
Mike M. wrote on October 19, 2007 5:14 PM:But it doesn't stop the wholesale collection of call information from the telcos, does it? Seems like after this bill, AT&T would be able to release information again, just as it did before. Remember, they weren't targeting specific people the first time, they got everyone's data so they could mine it for patterns. What in this bill keeps that from happening again?
Al Swearengen wrote on October 19, 2007 11:04 PM:Upon a first read of the second half:
1. Check out pages 36-38 (around there), where the bill lays out what I perceive to be a replacement for what the government had illegally been using material witness warrants for.
You can be detained for 7 days without FISA court approval. If there is no approval from the court, the information they got out of you can't be used in any way...right.
2. States cannot bring a suit against a telecom, and the Attorney General has broad power to decide whether or not the information to come from a lawsuit would damage national security. It can be appealed to the FISA court, but judges have no way of knowing whether the executive branch is being honest about the sensitivity. What can they do besides take the Justice Dept's word for it?
This goes for individual civil cases against telecom companies as well.
3. There are many many many edits being made to the FISA law from 1978, which are detailed within this bill. Those all have to be double-checked, perhaps posted here as well with the changes that were made.
4. Authority to initiate surveilance or detention gets spread out to directors of the FBI, CIA, etc. Where the FISA bill from 1978 allowed for one official to sign off, there are now two or three for most instances.
5. 3 days to submit to the FISA court for approval of a wiretap or detention has been extended to a full week, 7 days.
-----------------------
****There is language included towards the very end of the bill that directs officials to backdate either a request or authorization to the day before the 'Protect America Act' bill is signed into law. I ran out of time and couldn't think it all the way through.
Thanks for posting that here!
Al Swearengen wrote on October 19, 2007 11:10 PM:I just wrote a couple hundred words here and it didn't show up. I forgot to copy and paste it somewhere else just in case. Checking to see if it was sent to a moderation queue or perhaps it's gone forever.
G&S wrote on October 20, 2007 9:11 PM:(Almost) a Gilbert & Sullivan ditty...
" Oh I do what I'm told when I'm told what to do..
'cause thats a philosophy that gets me through!"
Now, pass the scotch!
Anonymous wrote on October 21, 2007 2:53 PM:"may not intentionally target any person known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States,"
should be
"shall never target any person known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States,"
and this
"if the purpose of such acquisition is to target for surveillance a particular, known person reasonably believed to be inside the United States."
should be
"when the acquisition is to target for surveillance a particular, known person inside the United States."
That's my personal opinion. Removing intent and purpose would make it stricter.
VIRJIN85 wrote on October 22, 2007 10:55 AM:Helo !!! You not have adult friend finder ?
judyinnm wrote on October 22, 2007 1:43 PM:Women's and man's, see this
Good luck !
"FISA COURT" - But hasn't the attorney general become the "judge" of the legality of warrantless surveillance? We don't need no stinkin' court.