By Cliff Montgomery – Aug. 30th, 2009
A federal court on Aug. 20th threw out a lawsuit which challenged the legality of the FISA Amendments Act(FAA)–a controversial law that allows the U.S. government to spy on the international phone calls and emailsof American citizens.
The challenge had its origins on December 19th, 2008, when the Brennan Center for Justice submitted asupplemental amicus curiae brief in Amnesty v. Blair. The brief called on the court to find the FAAunconstitutional.
The lawsuit was submitted on behalf of Amnesty International, the ACLU and a host of defense attorneys andother human rights organizations. The brief stated that the FAA violates the Fourth Amendment, and thus isunconstitutional. It also stated that the act fails to ensure adequate privacy protections.
“The implications of [the court’s dismissal] are quite troubling,” Emily Berman, one of the authors of the legalchallenge, declared in a statement on the Brennan Center’s website.
“Because this surveillance is conducted in secret,” Berman continued, “dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims meansthat we might never know whose communications are collected nor what the government does with thatinformation.”
The full sweep of this collection becomes apparent when one looks more deeply into this questionable law.
“The FAA dramatically expands governmental authority to seize communications of American citizens insidethe United States without a prior judicial warrant,” stated a Brennan summary of the brief found on its website.
“Having swept up communications involving U.S. citizens, the government is permitted by the FAA to retainand disseminate any ‘foreign intelligence information,’ ” continued the summary.
But apparently the FAA so loosely defines the term, “foreign intelligence information,” that the feds interpretthe phrase to include any communications that discuss the “conduct of the foreign affairs of the UnitedStates.”
This is an immensely broad definition–one which practically begs for on overly expansive interpretation.
“Most or all of the professional communications of plaintiff journalists and human rights organizations, forexample, would fall squarely into this exception,” stated the Brennan summary.
The FAA ensures that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) approves all surveillance procedures,but it fails to empower the court with the authority to oversee or modify those procedures.
The FISA drafters recognized that “ongoing judicial scrutiny is the best—perhaps only—way to ensure thatprocedures developed in the abstract in fact play their intended privacy-protecting role,” declared the Brennansummary.
Such privacy concerns cut to the heart of the spying issue. And these matters deserve a more reasonedconsideration then what they’re currently getting from America’s judiciary.
