FISA: There's NO place for secret laws or courts in a democracy, and FISA is just that! [View All]

"FISA" is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a U.S. federal law prescribing procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance SECRETLY enacted in 1978.

Its original purpose was to regulate -- NOT abolish -- illegal and unconstitutional wiretappping activities conducted by the Nixon administration, basically by creating a secret court to issue warrants, AFTER the fact, for phone taps placed by federal government, supposedly to spy on foreign agents making calls to US phones or through US phone systems. From Wiki:

The act created a court which meets in secret, and approves or denies requests for search warrants. Only the number of warrants applied for, issued and denied, is reported. In 1980 (the first full year after its inception), it approved 322 warrants.

This number has steadily grown to 2224 warrants in 2006. In the period 1979-2006 a total of 22,990 applications for warrants were made to the Court of which 22,985 were approved (sometimes with modifications; or with the splitting up, or combining together, of warrants for legal purposes), and only 5 were definitively rejected.

The Act was amended by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, primarily to include terrorism on behalf of groups that are not specifically backed by a foreign government. An overhaul of the bill, the Protect America Act of 2007 was signed into law on August 5, 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act

Even though FISA's warrant-granting powers have expanded with each renewal, Bush-Cheney couldn't even be bothered to obtain warrants for the illegal wiretapping they started BEFORE 911, which is why they want to give Telco companies immunity from the illegal phone taps they placed on their customers.

The point here is that FISA is an unconstitutional violation of the fourth amendment, and should be abolished, or simply allowed to expire, which will happen in August if Congress doesn't renew it. Here's what the fourth amendment says:

Amendment IV

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, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

FISA is unconstitutional and there is NO "good" way to renew it much less expand its powers, and the "compromise" is nothing but a get-out-of-jail-free card for Bush and Cheney making it much more difficult to hold their administration accountable for their crimes.

Executive Summary: FISA is an unconstitutional piece of shit and has to go! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: