QUOTE
July 28, 2007, 12:01PM
Bush wants law for monitoring terror suspects updated
President cites the use of disposable cell phones and the Internet to plan attacks
By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press
Democrats plan to revise spying law WASHINGTON — President Bush wants Congress to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists.
"This law is badly out of date," Bush said todayin his weekly radio address.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, provides a legal foundation that allows information about terrorists' communications to be collected without violating civil liberties.
Democrats want to ensure that any changes don't not give the executive branch unfettered surveillance powers.
Bush noted that terrorists now use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate, recruit operatives and plan attacks; such tools were not available when FISA passed nearly 30 years ago. He also cited a recently released intelligence estimate that concluded al-Qaida is using its growing strength in the Middle East to plot attacks on U.S. soil.
"Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country," Bush said. "Congress needs to act immediately to pass this bill, so that our national security professionals can close intelligence gaps and provide critical warning time for our country."
The 1978 law set up a court that meets in secret to review applications from the FBI, the National Security Agency and other agencies for warrants to wiretap or search the homes of people in the United States in terrorist or espionage cases.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush authorized the National Security Agency to spy on calls between people in the U.S. and suspected terrorists abroad without FISA court warrants. The administration said it needed to act more quickly than the court could. It also said the president had inherent authority under the Constitution to order warrantless domestic spying.
After the program became public and was challenged in court, Bush put it under FISA court supervision this year.
The national intelligence director, in a letter on Wednesday to the House intelligence committee, stressed the need to be able to collect intelligence about foreign terrorists overseas. Mike McConnell said intelligence agencies should be able to do that without requirements imposed by an "out of date" law.
"Simply put, in a significant number of cases, we are in the unfortunate position of having to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located overseas," the letter to the committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, said.
In a statement, Reyes said: "To date, our review has uncovered numerous inefficiencies in the current FISA system. It is not yet clear whether changes to the statute are necessary, but if they are required and justified, we will address them."
Bush wants law for monitoring terror suspects updated
President cites the use of disposable cell phones and the Internet to plan attacks
By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press
Democrats plan to revise spying law WASHINGTON — President Bush wants Congress to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies monitor the communications of suspected terrorists.
"This law is badly out of date," Bush said todayin his weekly radio address.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, provides a legal foundation that allows information about terrorists' communications to be collected without violating civil liberties.
Democrats want to ensure that any changes don't not give the executive branch unfettered surveillance powers.
Bush noted that terrorists now use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate, recruit operatives and plan attacks; such tools were not available when FISA passed nearly 30 years ago. He also cited a recently released intelligence estimate that concluded al-Qaida is using its growing strength in the Middle East to plot attacks on U.S. soil.
"Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country," Bush said. "Congress needs to act immediately to pass this bill, so that our national security professionals can close intelligence gaps and provide critical warning time for our country."
The 1978 law set up a court that meets in secret to review applications from the FBI, the National Security Agency and other agencies for warrants to wiretap or search the homes of people in the United States in terrorist or espionage cases.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush authorized the National Security Agency to spy on calls between people in the U.S. and suspected terrorists abroad without FISA court warrants. The administration said it needed to act more quickly than the court could. It also said the president had inherent authority under the Constitution to order warrantless domestic spying.
After the program became public and was challenged in court, Bush put it under FISA court supervision this year.
The national intelligence director, in a letter on Wednesday to the House intelligence committee, stressed the need to be able to collect intelligence about foreign terrorists overseas. Mike McConnell said intelligence agencies should be able to do that without requirements imposed by an "out of date" law.
"Simply put, in a significant number of cases, we are in the unfortunate position of having to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located overseas," the letter to the committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, said.
In a statement, Reyes said: "To date, our review has uncovered numerous inefficiencies in the current FISA system. It is not yet clear whether changes to the statute are necessary, but if they are required and justified, we will address them."
rejected the Justice Department's subpoena for details on Amazon's customers and their purchasing habits. Prosecutors had claimed the details would help them prove their case against a former Madison, Wisc., city official charged with tax evasion related to selling used books through Amazon. 
eventually rejected the request for users' search queries (and allowed only an excerpt from Google's index of Web sites). 
was concerned about the "perception by the public" that Google search terms are "subject to government scrutiny." In the Amazon case, Judge Crocker 
predicted that "rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon's customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases, now and perhaps forever." 
who had bought used books" from him, according to court documents. Prosecutors subsequently narrowed the request to 120 book buyers, 30 per year for the four years under investigation--on the theory that FBI and IRS agents could then contact those 120 customers. 
"When we don 't know what the government wants the information for and we have a doubt whether it violates privacy or First Amendment rights, typically we will dialog with the government and try to understand what their perspective is or we'll make a motion and have a judge decide whether the government has any need for the information." 
who have that information stored by search engines or e-commerce sites. 
(and without any publicity). But booksellers and libraries have unique First Amendment protections under U.S. law that can shield them from some overzealous demands by police for personal information. 
. And perhaps the most famous case came when independent counsel Kenneth Starr tried unsuccessfully to obtain Monica Lewinsky's purchase records from Kramerbooks, a popular neighborhood bookstore in Washington, D.C. 