NYT editorial: Limiting Power’s ‘Natural Tendency’
After a long and frightening period of acquiescence, Congressional Democrats are standing up to President Bush’s assault on civil liberties — demanding an end to spying on Americans without court supervision.
Last week, the full House and the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed major improvements to a deeply flawed measure that the White House pushed through Congress just before the summer recess. The leadership will have to stand firm to enact more needed fixes to that law — and prevent the White House from using the occasion to encroach even further on civil liberties.
The bill had a narrow aim, to close a loophole in the 1978 law on electronic spying that was created by new technology. But Mr. Bush added provisions that gave legal cover to his decision to spy on Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant after 9/11 — and actually expanded his powers. The only thing good to come of last summer’s rout is that the law was set to expire in February, and a group of Congressional Democrats are fighting to get it right this time.
The House passed a measure last week that contains the necessary updates to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It allows the collection of e-mail messages and phone calls between people outside the United States that happen to go through American data hubs. It grants some additional latitude for starting eavesdropping on communications originating or ending in the United States, and then getting court approval afterward.
But it restores critical oversight powers to the special foreign intelligence court — to monitor such programs, compel the intelligence agencies to comply with the rules and impose sanctions if they do not. These legitimate restraints on the government’s power are reflected in a Senate bill that was approved by the Judiciary Committee last week.
(Continued here.)
Last week, the full House and the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed major improvements to a deeply flawed measure that the White House pushed through Congress just before the summer recess. The leadership will have to stand firm to enact more needed fixes to that law — and prevent the White House from using the occasion to encroach even further on civil liberties.
The bill had a narrow aim, to close a loophole in the 1978 law on electronic spying that was created by new technology. But Mr. Bush added provisions that gave legal cover to his decision to spy on Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant after 9/11 — and actually expanded his powers. The only thing good to come of last summer’s rout is that the law was set to expire in February, and a group of Congressional Democrats are fighting to get it right this time.
The House passed a measure last week that contains the necessary updates to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It allows the collection of e-mail messages and phone calls between people outside the United States that happen to go through American data hubs. It grants some additional latitude for starting eavesdropping on communications originating or ending in the United States, and then getting court approval afterward.
But it restores critical oversight powers to the special foreign intelligence court — to monitor such programs, compel the intelligence agencies to comply with the rules and impose sanctions if they do not. These legitimate restraints on the government’s power are reflected in a Senate bill that was approved by the Judiciary Committee last week.
(Continued here.)
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