Wired’s Threat Level blog reports that the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Recently passed by both the House and Senate, FISA was signed into law on Thursday by President Bush. The ACLU has fought aspects of FISA in the past. The new complaint (PDF) alleges the following: “The law challenged here supplies none of the safeguards that the Constitution demands. It permits the government to monitor the communications of U.S. Citizens and residents without identifying the people to be surveilled; without specifying the facilities, places, premises, or property to be monitored; without observing meaningful limitations on the retention, analysis, and dissemination of acquired information; without obtaining individualized warrants based on criminal or foreign intelligence probable cause; and, indeed, without even making prior administrative determinations that the targets of surveillance are foreign agents or connected in any way, however tenuously, to terrorism.”
Tags: ACLU, Barack Obama, civil liberties, Democrats, fisa, George Bush, government surveillance, John McCain, patriot act, republicans, telecom immunity, terroism, wiretaps
July 14, 2008 at 12:24 pm |
My question to the Our Dark Lord Chum: Why is Barack Obama listed in the tags? Did he vote for FISA? I’m sure McCain did. Just curious.
July 14, 2008 at 1:19 pm |
Yeah, Barack, the personification and embodiment of “change,” voted for it…after threatening to filibuster it. Hmmm…I guess that principle went out the window come election time…..