Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

“ What if Congress passed a law which just excluded FISA from any electronic surveillance of international communications where one party to the communications is a member of or affiliated with Al Qaida or a related terrorist group; and further, if we went on and provided that there would be normal oversight by both the House and the Senate Intelligence Committee, periodically that the administration would report to the Intelligence Committees on the progress of that program?
DEWINE: We, obviously, have the ability within the committee to keep such things classified. We do it all the time. ”

“ The FISA process makes perfect sense in almost all cases of foreign-intelligence monitoring in the United States. Although technology has changed dramatically since FISA was enacted, FISA remains a vital tool in the war on terrorism -- one that we are using to its fullest and will continue to use against al Qaeda and other foreign threats. But the terrorist surveillance program operated by the NSA requires maximum speed and agility to achieve early warning, and even a very brief delay may make the difference between success and failure in detecting and preventing the next attack. ”

“ Despite the Posse Comitatus Act’s intent, and in contravention of the law, President Bush:
(a) has used military forces for law enforcement purposes on U.S. border patrol;
(b) has established a program to use military personnel for surveillance and information on criminal activities;
(c) is using military espionage equipment to collect intelligence information for law enforcement use on civilians within the United States; and
(d) employs active duty military personnel in surveillance agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) . ”

“ The men and women of CIA deserve a real defense. And the American people deserve a clear explanation of what their Central Intelligence Agency does on their behalf.
First and foremost, we are an intelligence organization that engages in foreign espionage. We steal secrets from foreign adversaries, hostile entities, and terrorist organizations. We analyze this intelligence so that our government can better understand the adversaries we face in a challenging and dangerous world. ”

“ I have indicated that I believe that, putting aside the question of the authorization to use military force, that, while it's a tough legal question as to whether or not Congress has the authority under the Constitution to cabin or to limit the president's constitutional authority to engage in electronic surveillance of the enemy, that is not a question that we even need to get to. ”

“ One specific issue that a new Espionage Act might address is individuals acting on behalf of a foreign power and seeking to obfuscate this link. The US, in 1938, introduced the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) , which requires anyone other than accredited diplomats – including both US and non-US citizens – who represents the interests of foreign powers in a "political or quasi-political capacity" to register with the Department of Justice, disclosing their relationship with the foreign government and information about related activities and finances. ”

“ It could take risks that our bureaucracies today are afraid to take - risks such as infiltrating agents who lack diplomatic cover into terrorist organizations. It could even lead in the front-line efforts to rebuild failed states. A cadre of such undercover operatives would allow us to gain the intelligence on terrorist activities that we don't get today from our high-tech surveillance systems and from a CIA clandestine service that works almost entirely out of our embassies abroad. ”

“ Unauthorized disclosures damage our intelligence relationships abroad, compromise intelligence gathering, jeopardize lives, and increase the threat of terrorism. As Justice Steward [1] stated in the Pentagon Papers case, "it is elementary that the successful conduct of international diplomacy and the maintenance of an effective national defense require both confidentiality and secrecy. Other nations can hardly deal with this Nation in an atmosphere of mutual trust unless they can be assured that their confidences will be kept . ”

“ If Americans are not able to learn how their government is interpreting and executing the law then we have effectively eliminated the most important bulwark of our democracy. That’s why, even at the height of the Cold War, when the argument for absolute secrecy was at its zenith, Congress chose to make US surveillance laws public.
Without public laws, and public court rulings interpreting those laws, it is impossible to have informed public debate. ”