Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Summary

Prior the passage of the PATRIOT Act, the FISA Act gave the procedures “for requesting judicial authorization for electronic surveillance and physical search of persons engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the United States on behalf of a foreign power” (Aftergood 2). However after the 2001, the powers of the FISA Act had become augmented far beyond the provisions of its original 1978 bill. For example, the original use of the FISA Act was for only “the purpose of foreign intelligence” (Baker 12) but the language in the Patriot Act changed the purpose of the FISA Act to “a purpose, which thus making the FISA process generally available to law enforcement not engaged in foreign intelligence work” (Baker

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 was a result of “congressional investigations into Federal surveillance activities conducted in the name of national security” (Intelligence Surveillance Act, n.d.). FISA allows for judicial and congressional supervision of foreign surveillance, while maintaining the “secrecy necessary to effectively monitor national security threats”, and outlines the procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence information (Intelligence Surveillance Act, n.d.).

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) is a law granted by the United States which defined procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance that was deemed in the best interest of national security. This gave congress the ability to oversee foreign intelligence surveillance while maintaining secrecy in conducting surveillance of national security threats. The Patriot Act enhanced the FISA capability to conduct wiretap surveillance without warrants. According to Matthew A. Anzaldi and Jonathan W. Gannon (2010), FISA "provides the legal framework through which the Intelligence Community lawfully collects intonation about those who pose national security threats to our country” (p.1690). The right of privacy that’s protected

Since the passing of FISA came after a widespread finding of warrantless wiretapping by a number of different government entities, Congress along with the Carter administration, needed to carefully craft a bill that not only reconciled national security needs to conduct domestic surveillance, but also continued to protect individual liberties such as that of the first and fourth amendments. The once top-secret Carter administration memos regarding FISA offer a first-hand glimpse at the thinking that went into

The provisions of the Patriot Act sought to beef up security against homegrown terrorism increase surveillance procedures, including phone taps against an individual rather than just one phone number. Next, the act aimed at the removal of access to funding for terrorist groups and made it a requirement for financial institutions to prevent money laundering wherever possible. Title four was aimed specifically at providing more funding for protecting our borders. The most important part of title five was the use of National Security Letters and included an order which kept the target from knowing about it or even telling anyone else. Then, the act outlined compensation for victims of acts of terrorism and their families. Also, there was a sharp increase in information sharing between law enforcement entities and jurisdictions. Afterward, several criminal acts were added to the list of things considered acts of terrorism and the penalties increased for these acts as well. All of these things are, to me, a utilitarian effort to make our best moral effort to secure our country. Viewed from a consequentialist standpoint, things like the Patriot Act are

Today, electronic surveillance remains one of the most effective tools the United States has to protect against foreign powers and groups seeking to inflict harm on the nation, but it does not go without a few possessing a few negative aspects either. Electronic surveillance of foreign intelligence has likely saved the lives of many innocent people through prevention of potential acts of aggression towards the United States. There are many pros to the actions authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) pertaining to electronic surveillance, but there are also cons. Looking at both the pros and cons of electronic surveillance is important in understanding the overall effectiveness of FISA. [1]

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is an Act of Congress passed in 1978 and signed by the then President Jimmy Carter. The Act stipulates the procedures to be followed when obtaining intelligence from foreign powers and agents of foreign powers both physically and electronically. The Act has been amended severally. In 2001, it was amended to involve groups and terrorist organizations not supported by foreign governments in an Act called the USA PATRIOT Act. A further amendment was done in 2007 to overhaul most of the provisions, in the Act called Protect America Act. A final amendment was done in 2008 called the FISA Amendments Act of 2008

This act was created in 1978. It proposes methods for gaining judicial permission in order to carry out physical and technological search for a person, who might be a terrorist threat for USA, on behalf of a foreign power.

1. Since the release of NSA’s classified documents by the NSA ex-contractor Edward Snowden, the controversy of morality and legitimacy of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), and, in particular, section 702, has become a major issue of public debate in the context of national security and privacy rights. To understand the underlying controversy, it is important to understand what powers section 702 gives to the US intelligence agencies. Section 702 of the Federal Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA) is the section that elaborates on the procedures and regulations for surveillance of non-United States persons while they are located outside the US. It defines US people as either citizens or permanent residence card (commonly known as green card) holders. Because determination of the person’s location can be hard (due to ambiguous borders in territorial agreements and ways to hide malefactors’ location), the law requires the targets to be only reasonably believed to be located overseas. Section 702 is flexible in terms of obtaining legal

This article specifically explains the legal constraints that go hand in hand with information sharing while being monitored through the Patriot act. Showing how the Patriot Act itself monitors specific agencies with respect to national security. Its main subject areas deal with information sharing amongst U.S. citizens through cyber space such as internet, social networks, emails etc… But most importantly this article is a reflection of the United states government’s precautionary measures taking by our U.S. Government in order to up hold not only the safety of our citizens but our national security as

Mass surveillance is a word that has been thrown around every so often in the last few decades, especially ever since George Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although this book was released over 60 years ago, some aspects of the book are seeming to become true in the United States, and other parts of the world today. The idea of mass surveillance isn’t so taboo anymore, as there are several programs ran by sovereign countries around the world which monitor their domestic citizens, as well as citizens and leaders of other foreign countries. With all of our technological communication advances since 1949, this age of information is only going to get more severe, and more tracking and monitoring will be done. The biggest offender of doing

Then I am going to argue that, for the benefit of globalization and international trade, it should be made equally harder for US intelligence agencies to collect information on non-US persons as it is to collect US-persons’ private information. Otherwise, this double standard can have – or maybe already has – negative consequences on trust between nations. S

The need for ensuring the security of nations and enterprises on the one hand and the need for protecting the privacy of individuals on the other, are creating a myriad of conflicts regarding ethics, laws and personal rights. Never before in the history of modern society has there been such a strong emphasis on capturing, analyzing, categorizing and using personal data that had been highly protected in the past for purposes of securing nations (Ottensmeyer, Heroux, 1991). Correspondingly, there has never been a time when every aspect of life in an organization is monitored, from personal computer and telephone use to the use of personal Wi-Fi and networking devices (Riedy, Wen, 2010). The first section of this analysis is to analyze three technologies that allow individuals to research other citizens' data and also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches to public access of information. The strategies or steps that citizens can do to protect their confidential information is also discussed as is the Federal law that enables the U.S. Government to gain legal right to make private information public. This specific law is called the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act and is primarily used for providing greater information sharing within and between government agencies in fighting terrorism, piracy and major crimes (Riedy, Wen, 2010).

In this paper, I will argue against government surveillance advocates. In recent years, many whistleblowers have come forward with information concerning government surveillance activities. These activities appear to be putting citizens’ right to privacy at risk, because of that, many have been trying to figure out the intent of such acts.

The concept of government surveillance is anchored on the US constitution, particularly in the Patriot Act. The act was passed in 2001 following the September 11 attack that claimed thousands of innocent lives (Alexander, 2011). Since then, the US government sought to make America much safer