The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

Another pro of FISA, and the applicable amendments that followed, is the ability for electronic surveillance to be conducted without a court order for a designated length of time to better facilitate collection and streamline the process under USC. 1802, Sec 102. There are, of course, steps required by high ranking officials, the President and Attorney General, which must be taken to conduct such surveillance without a court order. Also, the criteria to conduct the surveillance is restricted specifically to communications exclusively between foreign powers and must not include “substantial likelihood” that the surveillance will acquire communications pertaining to a United States Person. [4] While the appropriate legal process should always be followed, this provision is necessary at times to bypass the lengthy legal process for obtaining a court order when time restrictions apply.

In the years since the passing of the Patriot Act, there has been much controversy and debate regarding the positive and negative advantages, and consequences of this bill. As a member of the law enforcement community I have experienced firsthand some of the changes the Patriot Act has brought upon this nation. A result of this experience along with information obtained in the studying of this act and

President Bush intended through legislation, to aid federal agencies in identifying potential terrorists and to ultimately protect this country from possible potential terrorist attacks in the future (Banks, 2010). Both individuals in power and ordinary citizens were greatly supportive of giving up certain liberties and privacy in order for the protection of the greater good. However, The Patriot Act was extremely controversial and advocates feared that power could be abused and that non-threatening citizens were being examined for crimes in which were not terrorist related (Sievert, 2007). Additionally, the most controversial aspect of The Patriot Act was the fear of privacy in relation to the first and fourth amendment (Xhelili and Crowne,

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

Although the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) already permitted the administration to wiretap on an emergency basis and apply for warrants retroactively, the administration maintained that FISA was too cumbersome when urgent issues of national security were at stake. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales offered two justifications for the legality of the domestic spying program, asserting that the president had the "inherent authority under the Constitution, as commander in chief, to engage in this kind of activity" and that Congress, "when it authorize[d] the president to use all necessary and appropriate force" against al-Qaeda in 2001, indirectly sanctioned it. Critics objected that the wiretapping infringed on civil liberties, sidestepped the legislative branch, and placed the president above the law. In August 2006, a federal judge in Detroit ruled the wiretapping program unconstitutional. However, in July 2008, Congress passed a bill overhauling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—effectively legalizing Bush's secret program. The new law gave legal immunity to the telephone companies that participated in the NSA secret wiretapping program after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and broadened the government's ability to eavesdrop on those in the U.S. and abroad it suspects are linked to terrorist

So, a bill that almost 40 years ago which clearly stipulated that it could only be used for monitoring foreign agents has been made available to non-intelligence agencies that were not the subjects of the original bill to conduct more intrusive surveillance. Specifically, with the PATRIOT Act, law enforcement could now use the FISA Act as a precursor to obtain private information from “banks, businesses, credit companies, Internet providers, and others about U.S. citizens without a showing of probable cause” (Baker 15). This obviously were not part of the original FISA Act, because the original FISA Act pertained to foreign nationals and spies in the United States, not American citizens. More importantly however this amendment to the FISA Act that gives the government the opportunity to obtain private information without probable cause is in strong violation of Fourth Amendment which stipulates that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause” (US. Const. amend. IV), because now the government doesn’t need probable cause anymore to conduct surveillance or gather private information.

The Patriot Act was drawn up quite carefully, and it contains all of the same checks and balances that the American public has grown accustomed to seeing in government documents which prevents corruption. With several different titles that clearly outline a variety of potential scenarios because they give a deeper context to the provisions listed in the Patriot Act. The titles of the Patriot Act strengthen the criminal laws against terrorism, removes obstacles to investigating terrorism, and provides for emergency disclosure of electronic communications to protect life and limb when the matters involve foreign intelligence or counterintelligence. The Patriot Act provides our government with the ability to quickly thwart and prevent any and all nascent threats before it has a chance to become problematic. The war on terrorism is not over and the protection of our nation is the highest and the most important responsibility of our government. Increased surveillance and investigation capabilities are not the impetus for the act, they are merely the tools used to ensure the continued safety of the American public and this is why I unequivocally support the USA Patriot

Friday November 11th, I saw many articles of history claiming that government surveillance has been happening since Watergate and after the 9/11 attacks. Jane Harman implies that security sparked from the mistake of not protecting enough (Harman). The USA PATRIOT Act gave the government the authority to research forms of communication prior to 9/11 (“Domestic”). President George W. Bush authorized the National Security Agency, NSA, to look into the media and is believed to be the largest intelligence agency in the United States (“Domestic”). NSA has a location in Utah that can hold about 100 years of international data (Maney). Also, Lauren Regan claims that the new facility will be 1.5 million square feet (Regan 32). It’s shocking that they’ve made that big of a

As if it were not enough with all of these new security acts and suppositions that the government needed to do more to keep us safe. In late December 2010, the New York Times article revealed that President Obama and also his predecessor George W. Bush, had secretly authorized and approved the National Security Agency (NSA) having access to wiretap domestic phone calls and emails without obtaining legally required warrants. Through the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) administrative institutions were permitted to wiretap on an emergency basis and apply for warrants without the necessary legal authorization, the administration thought that FISA was too monotonous and cumbersome pertaining to urgent issues of national security.

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

Spying on American citizens is now a common method employed by the government striving to protect the nation from terrorist attacks. Nonetheless, since its incorporation, the Act has been controversial as politicians and citizens alike have argued between the need to keep society safe and abusive powers of the government over its citizens. Although, mandated to serve as

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1978. FISA contains special rules for the issuance of certain search and surveillance warrants. Initially, such warrants could only be used when the "primary purpose" was the collection of foreign intelligence, targeting a foreign power and/or its agents.

On October 4 2001, President George W Bush secretly signed under his full authority, a executive order for “The Program”. After signing the order, the NSA then have full authority to monitor all internet traffic, and phone calls in the United States. After the NSA failed to prevent the 9/11, they set a new goal, which is to detect terrorist, and monitor their

Government Surveillance Be Quiet! The NSA is Listening! After the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, the United States (US) improved and tightened their surveillance on US citizens.(NSA Surveillance Programs: Are National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs constitutional?)

The primary aim of this article is to compare the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) with the Surveillance law in the European countries. Analyzing the European laws reveals that the right provided to the executives with reasonable oversight results in more efficient security procedures than the current U.S. regime while completely obeying the strict rules established to protect privacy by the European Court of Human Rights. The governmental monitoring and surveillance in European countries must obey Article 8 of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights. This article concludes by stating that U.S. Congress should consider the standards that the European countries have followed to monitor the employees’