DEMOCRATS HELP BUSH TRASH THE CONSTITUTION

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JAMES RISEN, NY TIMES - President Bush signed into law legislation that
broadly expanded the government's authority to eavesdrop on the
international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens
without warrants.

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said
that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration
officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign
terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language
would sharply alter the legal limits on the government's ability to
monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of
the United States.

They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal
framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being
conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to
regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications
of American citizens.

"This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program," said Kate Martin,
director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who
has studied the new legislation. . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/washington/06nsa.html?ei=5065&en=
4e05f95a4b60ac78&ex=1187064000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print


CHARLIE SAVAGE, BOSTON GLOBE - Privacy rights groups said the new law
goes too far by allowing the NSA to evade warrant requirements for calls
and e-mails involving Americans. They accused Democratic leaders of
"spinelessness" in the face of Republican threats to blame them for any
coming terrorist attack if they did not give the president the new power
before leaving for their annual August recess.

"We are deeply disappointed that the president's tactics of
fear-mongering have once again forced Congress into submission," said
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties
Union.

In two respects, the law grants the executive branch even broader
warrantless wiretapping powers than the ones Bush said he had a right to
exercise under his original program.

First, the law requires telecommunications companies to make their
facilities available for government wiretaps, and it grants them
immunity from lawsuits for complying. Under the old program, such
companies participated only voluntarily -- and some were sued for
allegedly violating their customers' privacy.

Second, Bush has said his original surveillance program was restricted
to calls and e-mails involving a suspected terrorist, but the new law
has no such limit.

Instead, it allows executive-branch agencies to conduct oversight-free
surveillance of all international calls and e-mails, including those
with Americans on the line, with the sole requirement that the
intelligence-gathering is "directed at a person reasonably believed to
be located outside the United States." There is no requirement that
either caller be a suspected terrorist, spy, or criminal.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/08/06/
new_law_expands_power_to_wiretap/?page=full


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