[NYTr] Bush Signs Wiretap Law that Legalizes Much of His Illegal Snooping

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The New York Times - Aug 6, 2007 posted 8/5/07
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/washington/06nsa.html

Bush Signs Law Widening Reach for Wiretapping

By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — President Bush signed into law on Sunday
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.

Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special
intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail
messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside
the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the
surveillance inside the United States.

Today, most international telephone conversations to and from the
United States are conducted over fiber-optic cables, and the most
efficient way for the government to eavesdrop on them is to latch on to
giant telecommunications switches located in the United States.

By changing the legal definition of what is considered “electronic
surveillance,” the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those
conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches —
as long as the target of the government’s surveillance is “reasonably
believed” to be overseas.

For example, if a person in Indianapolis calls someone in London, the
National Security Agency can eavesdrop on that conversation without a
warrant, as long as the N.S.A.’s target is the person in London.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said Sunday in an interview that
the new law went beyond fixing the foreign-to-foreign problem,
potentially allowing the government to listen to Americans calling
overseas.

But he stressed that the objective of the new law is to give the
government greater flexibility in focusing on foreign suspects
overseas, not to go after Americans.

“It’s foreign, that’s the point,” Mr. Fratto said. “What you want to
make sure is that you are getting the foreign target.”

The legislation to change the surveillance act was rushed through both
the House and Senate in the last days before the August recess began.

The White House’s push for the change was driven in part by a
still-classified ruling earlier this year by the special intelligence
court, which said the government needed to seek court-approved warrants
to monitor those international calls going through American switches.

The new law, which is intended as a stopgap and expires in six months,
also represents a power shift in terms of the oversight and regulation
of government surveillance.

The new law gives the attorney general and the director of national
intelligence the power to approve the international surveillance,
rather than the special intelligence court. The court’s only role will
be to review and approve the procedures used by the government in the
surveillance after it has been conducted. It will not scrutinize the
cases of the individuals being monitored.

The law also gave the administration greater power to force
telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations.
The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the
attorney general and the director of national intelligence.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that some telecommunications
company officials had told Congressional leaders that they were unhappy
with that provision in the bill and might challenge the new law in
court. The aides said the telecommunications companies had told
lawmakers that they would rather have a court-approved warrant ordering
them to comply.

In fact, pressure from the telecommunications companies on the Bush
administration has apparently played a major hidden role in the
political battle over the surveillance issue over the past few months.

In January, the administration placed the N.S.A.’s warrantless
wiretapping program under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
and subjected it for the first time to the scrutiny of the FISA court.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that they believed that
pressure from major telecommunications companies on the White House was
a major factor in persuading the Bush administration to do that. Those
companies were facing major lawsuits for having secretly cooperated
with the warrantless wiretapping program, and now wanted greater legal
protections before cooperating further.

But the change suddenly swamped the court with an enormous volume of
search warrant applications, leading, in turn, to the administration’s
decision to seek the new legislation.

                             ***

Reuters via The New York Times - Aug 5, 2007

Pentagon Spending Bill Passes

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 (Reuters) — The House early Sunday approved
additional money for the Pentagon but not for the Iraq war.

The military appropriations bill, which passed by a vote of 395 to 13,
provides $459.6 billion for the Pentagon for the fiscal year starting
Oct. 1.

The Senate left last week for the August recess, and is not scheduled
to vote on the military spending bill until autumn.

The House version includes money for items like new ships, more
soldiers and a 3.5 percent pay raise for the military, half a
percentage point more than the Pentagon sought. It does not include an
extra $147 billion in Iraq war funds that the Bush administration has
requested.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company