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Monday, February 18, 2008
Fear and the surveillance law
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Well, the sky has not yet fallen. The country was not invaded by terrorist cells over the weekend. Even though the expanded electronic surveillance powers the government granted itself last August expired the end of last week, the United States has not lost the ability to listen in to those phone calls and internet transmissions needed to gather necessary intelligence on al-Qaeda and other adversaries.
Still, the drumbeat of fear from the Administration continues. Essentially, the president is claiming that if the expanded surveillance powers are not renewed, the country will be left defenseless and unable to listen in to conversations involving known or suspected terrorists. This is simply not the case.
The government had this ability before the law was expanded in August 2007, and it has the power now. What the government does not have any longer is the legal power to listen in to any international phone call or e-mail transmission made to or from any person, so long as one party is not in the United States - no suspicion of illegal or terrorist activity; just a suspicion that one person is outside the country. This level of potential surveillance goes far beyond what the government needs to legitimately and constitutionally gather necessary foreign intelligence.
Whether the Congress, which has been browbeaten in the past into passing legislation giving the federal government unnecessarily expansive powers to invade citizens’ privacy, will again allow itself to be thus intimidated, remains to be seen when the House and Senate reconvene following their President’s Day recess. But for now, at least, Uncle Sam cannot lawfully listen in to your international phone calls or a-mails, without at least some articulable reason for doing so.
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