ACLU renews attack on FISA reform

WASHINGTON, July 31 (UPI) -- The ACLU has described U.S. President George W. Bush's plan to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as "outrageous."

"This administration now makes the outrageous claim that they need even more power to wiretap without warrants. The administration claims the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must be 'modernized.' Actually, it needs to be followed. The reality is, their proposal would gut FISA," Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington Legislative Office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

"Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell claims that terrorism has outrun the law, but it is the administration that has outrun the law -- and the Constitution -- by trying to bypass the FISA court. Under the proposal that the Cheney team is floating on Capitol Hill a 'modernized' FISA would simply be a blank check for warrantless domestic and international surveillance," Frederickson said.

"The president claims that they need to expand FISA based on new technology. They are wrong. FISA was written to be technology neutral. There is absolutely no new technology that cannot be intercepted with a warrant under FISA. None," the ACLU official said.

"Even the man responsible for prepping and filing all FISA applications, James Baker, head of the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, has said that, 'There's no type of collection that's prohibited by the statute.' By the way, FISA was modernized by the Patriot Act, by Intelligence Reform legislation and by the re-authorization of the Patriot Act. In fact, FISA has been updated 50 times since it was enacted in 1978," Fredrickson said.

"The already-shaky legal ground on which this domestic spying program stood is crumbling beneath those who defend it," she said.