Would any sane country purposefully limit its ability to spy on enemy communications in time of war? That is the question Congress must answer as it takes up reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Privacy activists, civil libertarians and congressional Democrats argue that both foreign and domestic eavesdropping must be subject to judicial scrutiny and oversight, even if this means drastically reducing the amount of foreign intelligence information available to the government, without ever acknowledging the costs involved. It is time the American people had an open and honest debate on the relative importance of privacy and security.
FISA, of course, is the law regulating the government's interception of "electronic communications" for foreign intelligence purposes. Earlier this year the special FISA court narrowed dramatically the National Security Agency's ability to collect overseas intelligence under the law, so Congress passed a six-month amendment before its August recess to allow current surveillance programs to continue. That amendment should be made permanent. Continue to read @ Wall Street Journal
3 comments:
wow. bad idea.
especially in this day and age, when america has fewer and fewer friends in the world.
thats my two cents.
is there good reason to limit because of personal security? well of course there is. but i think it outweighs the potential of what bad things could happen.
its risky.
Since there are no proven cases of the terrorism surveillance act being missed used to spy on an obedient law abiding American citizens, the only people that are against it is just because they don't like bush, they are willing to put their life and the lives of everyone else on the line of danger just because they don't like someone. That seems pretty arrogant to me. I believe that the government should not have to obtain a warrant as long as they can prove “after” the fact that there was suspicion, we don’t have time to find a suspicious call, get a warrant, and then listen in, by that time the criminal is done communicating and long gone. It’s a burden on national safety.
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