Protect America Act expires, but there are replacement bills
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008Since the “Protect America Act” expired (on Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008 due to a “sunset” provision), there are new bills in the 110th Congress to maintain the procedures for obtaining foreign intelligence operations. The bills attempt to provide some flexibility for the government to obtain intelligence information involving overseas entities contacting one another and sometimes entities within the United States, or even US citizens, without “excessive” time consumed with judicial supervision. At the same time, the public insists on some judicial supervision, in the spirit of the Fourth Amendment, when American citizens are involved, especially on United States soil.
The original “Protect America Act of 2007” was S. 1927 in the 110th Congress, introduced by Mitch McConnell, R-KY, link here. The text is here.
For the new legislation, the House bill is H.R. 3773 and is called “The FISA Amendments Act of 2008,” reference here. The bill was introduced by Representative Don Conyers (D-MI) on Feb 13, 2008. FISA is the acronym for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, text here (at Cornell). An important mechanism in that law is the “FISA courts.”
The Project Vote Smart and Congressional Research Service summaries are at this link.
The text of the bill is at this link.
The corresponding Senate bill is S. 2248 and is called “The FISA Amendments Act of 2007” and was introduced by John Rockefeller (D-WVa). The link is here.
Two closely related bills are S. 2240, “A bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, to modernize and streamline the provisions of that Act, and for other purposes,” introduced by Harry Reid (D-NV), link.
And H.R. 5440, the same title, introduced by Vito Fossella (R-NY), link here.
These bills refine the administrative protections in the law further.
Another related provision is the “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Substitution Act of 2007,” S. 2402, introduced by Senator Arlen Specter, R-PA, link here. This bill limits or precludes liabilities of ISP’s in certain intelligence investigations. President Bush wants the House to adopt and accept similar provisions protecting telecommunications companies from downstream liability.
A more distantly related bill is the “State Secrets Protection Act,” S. 2533, introduced by Edward Kennedy (D-MA), to allow limited civil liberties challenges to secret government operations. The govtrack reference is here.
The underlying law for the “USA Patriot Act” is to be found here.
Of course, there is controversy over whether the “expiration” of the Protect America act has meaningful effect on surveillance. For example, check this article by Ryan Paul at Ars Technica, Feb. 25, 2008, “Domestic surveillance goes on despite expiration of law,” link here.
I sometimes have stories on surveillance issues (and journalism shields), as well as pandemic preparation and other “nation security preparedness” problems, on my issues blog, link here.
Also noteworthy: RealID Act, which was passed in 2005 as a rider to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005.
The original law was HR 418 (109th) with the govtrack link here.