Reality, Not Rhetoric, On FISA

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Reality, Not Rhetoric, On FISA

By Silvestre Reyes
Wednesday, May 30, 2007; Page A13

The congressional testimony this month by former deputy attorney general James Comey called into question the accuracy of everything I had heard before about the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program. According to Comey, in the spring of 2004 President Bush authorized a program of domestic surveillance even though his acting attorney general was so concerned about the surveillance that he could not in good faith "certify its legality."

That the program didn't comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was not a shock. We have known that fact since the program's existence was disclosed in December 2005. What was shocking was the amount of dissent, even within the president's own Justice Department, about the perils of ignoring FISA.

FISA has been on the books since 1978 but has been updated and modernized numerous times. The law's purpose is to facilitate secret surveillance and searches on U.S. soil against spies, terrorists and other foreign powers.

A Congressional Research Service report last July found that Congress had made approximately 50 changes to FISA since its inception -- and nearly a dozen updates since Sept. 11, 2001. Whenever FISA has been shown to be inadequate to track the communications of terrorists, Congress has been ready to update the law.

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/29/AR2007052901637.html