Administration Buckles on Warrantless NSA Spying. or Does It?

Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sent a letter to top-ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee making it known that the administration had submitted the infamous NSA warrantless wiretapping program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for review. However, the attorney general's description of the measures taken is vague and raises more questions than it answers.

If this is truly a step back toward crucial checks and balances, that is certainly a good thing, but the exact nature of the judicial review provided by the FISC is still not known. Worse, this could be an attempted end-run around much-needed congressional oversight.

PFAW and PFAW Foundation are working with our allies on Capitol Hill and in the civil liberties advocacy community to get to the bottom of this. The so-called 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' has been operating illegally for years and we hope the recent steps taken by the administration protect Americans' constitutional rights. But any program like this must have adequate oversight and those who have broken the law in the past must be held accountable.