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Bush calls for expansion of spy law
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Candidate
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| Contributor | The Sunset Provision |
| Last Edited | The Sunset Provision Sep 19, 2007 02:22pm |
| Category | News |
| News Date | Sep 19, 2007 02:00pm |
| Description | President Bush said Wednesday that a law hastily passed in August to temporarily give the government more power to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign terror suspects must be made permanent and expanded.
If this doesn't happen, Bush said, "Our national security professionals will lose critical tools they need to protect our country."
"Without these tools, it will be harder to figure out what our enemies are doing to train, recruit and infiltrate operatives into America," he said on a visit to the super-secret National Security Agency's headquarters in suburban Fort Meade, Md. "Without these tools, our country will be much more vulnerable to attack."
The 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act governs when warrants for eavesdropping must be obtained from a secret intelligence court. This year's update — approved by the Senate and House just before Congress adjourned for an August break — allows more efficient interceptions of foreign communications.
Under the new law — the Protect America Act — the government can eavesdrop, without a court order, on communications conducted by a person reasonably believed to be outside the United States, even if an American is on one end of the conversation — so long as that American is not the intended focus or target of the surveillance.
That change was urgently requested by the Bush administration, which said that the modernization of communications technology had created a dire gap in the nation's terrorism intelligence collection capabilities.
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