[OPLINLIST] ALA opposition to FISA legislation

[Hickson, Pamela]

News from ALA shared by

Pam Hickson-Stevenson

Ohio Chapter Councilor to the American Library Association

 

 

 

The following is a letter ALA signed onto about FISA.

 

June 9, 2008 

Re: Opposition to the FISA Legislation Proposed by Senator Bond 

Dear Member of Congress: 

As organizations that are deeply committed to both civil liberties and
effective intelligence-gathering, we strongly urge you to oppose
legislation recently outlined by Senator Bond to amend the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act. This bill unreasonably and unnecessarily
authorizes broad surveillance of Americans' international communications
without meaningful Fourth Amendment protections: no individualized
warrant issued by a court, no determination of probable cause of
wrongdoing, and no specification of the location or means of the
surveillance. 

Touted as a compromise to end an impasse between House and Senate
versions of FISA legislation, the bill proposed by Senator Bond is far
from a compromise. Its chief provisions are not significantly different
from those contained in the bill passed by the Senate in February of
this year (S. 2248). Like that measure, the "compromise" would threaten
Americans' privacy by severely curtailing judicial review and failing to
include other reasonable civil liberties protections that appear in the
House-passed version of the legislation (H.R. 3773). Neither Sen. Bond
nor the administration has made a persuasive case that these sweeping
new powers are needed or that existing authorities are inadequate to
ensure the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence-gathering activities. 

In addition, this legislation would use the secret FISA court to rubber
stamp a grant of immunity to telecommunications companies that assisted
with unlawful warrantless surveillance. 

The Bond proposal does incorporate a few improvements, including an
audit of illegal warrantless surveillance and a provision reaffirming
that FISA is the exclusive means by which foreign intelligence
surveillance can lawfully be conducted in the United States. But these
modest concessions do not offset the vast new unchecked surveillance
powers the bill confers on the government. 

Among the most important reasons to oppose this bill are the following: 

* The bill would authorize massive warrantless surveillance. The bill
allows the government to intentionally acquire millions of Americans'
international communications with no individualized warrant or
determination of probable cause, so long as one party to a phone call or
e-mail is believed to be located abroad and the purpose is to gather
foreign intelligence. 

* The bill would require no individualized warrant even when an
American's communications clearly are of interest to the government. The
bill requires an individualized warrant only if and when the government
decides to "target" a particular American by using the person's phone
number or e-mail address to select his or her communications for
acquisition. While the legislation provides for judicial 

* review of targeting and other guidelines, the court procedures are
inadequate to meet Fourth Amendment requirements. 

* The bill would curtail effective judicial review of surveillance.
While the bill contains provisions for FISA court review of targeting
and other guidelines, those provisions do not provide a meaningful role
for the court in ensuring that the government does not seize and
data-mine the private communications of law-abiding Americans. Moreover,
the bill contains an exception for "exigent circumstances" that could be
misused to circumvent even the limited court review provided by the bill
with respect to new surveillance programs. 

* The bill would grant retroactive immunity for wrongdoing. The bill
would give blanket immunity to companies that aided the government in
conducting warrantless electronic surveillance of Americans. Like S.
2248, the bill would direct the court to dismiss privacy lawsuits
against telecommunications providers if they received written assurances
that the President had authorized the surveillance-assurances which in
fact they received. 

One change which makes the "compromise" worse than the Senate bill is a
provision which would require the transfer of all of the lawsuits
brought against the telecommunications providers from federal district
court to the secret FISA court-a body whose only job for the past thirty
years has been to approve FISA surveillance applications, not to try
cases. This is not a compromise on immunity; it is the same old immunity
dressed up to look like a judicial proceeding. 

* The bill would not provide a reasonable sunset. The bill would
authorize the government to conduct this massive surveillance for six
years, just like the original Senate bill. 

The proposed bill would grant unnecessary and unconstitutional powers to
the Executive Branch. We urge you oppose it, and to vote against any
legislation that contains the defects described above. 

Thank you for considering our views. 

American Civil Liberties Union 

American Library Association 

Arab-America Anti-Discrimination Committee 

Association of Research Libraries 

Bill of Rights Defense Committee Letter of June 9, 2008 Page 3 

Center for American Progress Action Fund 

Center for Democracy & Technology 

Center for National Security Studies 

Congressman Bob Barr, Liberty Strategies 

Defending Dissent Foundation 

Doug Bandow, Vice President for Policy, Citizen Outreach Project 

DownsizeDC.org, Inc. 

Electronic Frontier Foundation 

Fairfax County Privacy Council 

Friends Committee on National Legislation 

League of Women Voters of the United States 

Liberty Coalition 

MAS Freedom 

OMB Watch 

Open Society Policy Center 

OpenTheGovernment.org 

People For the American Way 

Privacy Lives 

Republican Liberty Caucus 

The Multiracial Activist 

United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society 

U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation 

 

 

Pamela J. Hickson-Stevenson, Assistant Director

Akron-Summit County Public Library

60 S. High Street

Akron, OH  44326

 

Phone 330.643.9102

Fax 330.643.9160

 

phs at akronlibrary.org <mailto:phs at akronlibrary.org> 

www.akronlibrary.org <http://www.akronlibrary.org>  

 

The Akron-Summit County Public Library provides resources for learning
and leisure, information services, meeting spaces, and programs for all
ages that support, improve, and enrich individual, family, and community
life.

 

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