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February 12, 2008

Whitehouse amendment gets approval from Senate

The most recent version of a 30-year-old bill that sets the parameters for spying gives the court the ability to approve law enforcement’s strategy for surveillance, including how far an agency can go in regards to spying on Americans.

Today the Senate passed an amendment to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would ensure that the court not only has the authority to approve surveillance procedures, but that the court retains the power to review whether the procedures are being followed and, if not, to order compliance.

“We need to assure that rules protecting Americans’ rights are being followed,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, sponsor of the amendment, said in a statement, “and because this administration fears and rejects judicial oversight; that is precisely what is most needed.”

The amendment deals with information gathered about Americans abroad who are not the targets of surveillance, but whose information is gathered incidentally during an investigation.

The ability to review whether an agency is complying with a court order is common to all courts, but was not explicit in the most recent version of the FISA.

“It makes no sense to limit the court’s inherent authority to see whether rules it has approved are being followed, and to enforce compliance with these approved rules,” Whitehouse said in his statement.

“It is not up to the executive branch to grade its own exams. That is a job for the courts.”

-- projo.com staff writer Brandie M. Jefferson

Posted by Brandie Jefferson  at 2:49 PM | Permalink

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