Senate Intelligence Committee votes to extend FISA as some members resist
August 15, 2011
Bill of Rights Defense Committee, (BORDC) , August 2011, Vol. 10, No. 8
“Earlier this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to extend the controversial FISA Amendments Act of 2008—which authorized the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping scheme that has been held unconstitutional by every federal judge ever to have reviewed the program—until 2013. Some senators, however, are raising their voices to defend privacy and constitutional rights.
The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which was borne out of a wide-ranging investigation of surveillance abuses during the 1970s, last week voted to extend the unconstitutional surveillance program for over two years—without any public notice and in spite of the fact that the law is not set to expire.
During the same closed-door session, the committee voted to reject a proposed amendment offered by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) that would have required the inspector general to report on the number of Americans whose communications have been monitored since 2008. Wyden and Udall, who also raised concerns during the PATRIOT Act reauthorization votes earlier this year, had already asked the director of national intelligence to estimate that number, but were told that “it is not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed under the authority.”
