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Thursday, October 11, 2007

More Detail on Yesterday's House FISA Hearings

Significant amendments were voted on yesterday during both the House Judiciary and Intelligence mark up hearings on HR 3773, the Responsible Electronic Surveillance that is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective Act of 2007 (RESTORE Act) a bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The passage of these measures ultimately improved the bill.

During the Intelligence Committee hearing, Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) offered an amendment, which passed, with four provisions. The amendment would:

• reaffirm that FISA is the only basis for conducting domestic surveillance;
• require the administration to "fully inform" Congress on any surveillance programs put into place since the Sept. 11, 2001;
• increase the number of FISA court judges and personnel handling FISA warrants;
• and mandate the FISA court to examine and approve how guidelines are applied for surveillance targeting.

An amendment also passed that would require quarterly court reviews of the "minimization" procedures used to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens unintentionally covered in surveillance. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced an amendment requiring the FISA court to approve guidelines for making sure that individual warrants are sought when "the significant purpose" of planned surveillance is to target people believed to be in the U.S. Click here to read Holt's statement on yesterday's hearing. And be sure to read this blog posting which with the accurate headline, correctly says, "Thank you, Jerry Nadler."

Similar amendments passed during the Judiciary hearing. These include an amendment offered by Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) to direct federal judges to assess government compliance with the procedures and guidelines of the court orders. Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) introduced an amendment requiring the minimization of surveillance of U.S. citizens when a "significant purpose" of the government's acquisition of information is to obtain the communications of a person reasonably believed to be located in the U.S. Robert Scott (D-VA) offered an amendment that would require the attorney general and director of national intelligence to submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a copy of the application to acquire communications of non-American citizens outside of the U.S.

Also to note are the amendments introduced in both committees that were fortunately voted down, such as an amendment to make the Protect America Act permanent, an amendment to remove all provisions requiring authorization to conduct surveillance of non-U.S. citizens located outside the U.S., and an amendment to provide retroactive legal immunity to communications companies who might have cooperated with administration surveillance efforts.

Staffers are now working on reconciling these amendments, and this base bill is expected to be brought to the House floor for a vote next week.