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MPAC bulletin – January 8, 2008
MPAC joins ACLU in urging senate majority
leader to oppose warrantless wiretapping
WASHINGTON, DC January 8, 2008 -- This week, the Muslim Public Affairs Council joined the American Civil Liberties Union in signing onto a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), urging him to introduce to the Senate floor the Judiciary Committee's version of the FISA
Amendments Act of 2007, rather than the version approved in the Intelligence Committee which would immensely diminish the privacy and constitutional rights of millions of Americans.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2007 (S. 2248) amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). FISA allows the federal government to physically search individuals and implement electronic surveillance procedures, and to collect intelligence information between or among foreign powers on U.S. territory. The Act was amended by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 in order to include terrorism on behalf of groups not supported by a foreign government.
The bill passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee would restrict the investigative powers of U.S. officials into the private communications of Americans, which have until now been abused under the guise of the FISA Act. In the last seven years, Americans have watched as their Fourth
Amendment right to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures has been diminished. The Judiciary Committee's FISA bill places important checks on the ability of telecommunications companies to readily provide warrantless mass communication records of Americans to the government without probable cause. Furthermore, the telecommunications industry would not be granted complete retroactive immunity for their compliance.
"The FISA Amendments Act of 2007 seeks to protect important constitutional rights that have been compromised in the name of national security post-9/11," said MPAC Government Relations Director Safiya Ghori. "The Senate Judiciary bill is necessary to counteract intelligence gathering measures by the National Security Agency that have listed innocent Americans as suspects in efforts to combat terrorism."
The letter urges the Majority Leader to support and bring forth the Judiciary Committee bill to the Senate floor for the following reasons:
- Bulk Collection: The Judiciary Committee's version prevents the government from engaging in mass, untargeted collection of all communications coming into or going out of the United States. The Judiciary Committee fixed an important loophole in the Intelligence Committee approach that would allow for bulk collection, which will inevitably sweep in vast numbers purely innocent communications for government analysis and use.
- Significant Purpose Test: Surveillance tactics in the United States that allow the government to obtain the contents of phone and email communications of people in this country without a court order are unconstitutional and un-American. Unlike the Intelligence bill, the Judiciary version makes clear that once a significant purpose of the government's surveillance to acquire the communications of a particular person has been determined, it must to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a court order base on probable cause.
- Immunity: Unlike the Intelligence Committee bill, the Judiciary version does not grant blanket immunity to the telecommunications companies that facilitated the President's warrantless wiretapping program. It defers that major policy decision which affects the constitutional rights of Americans and does not immunize past misconduct.
MPAC signs the letter in hopes of protecting the individual rights of all Americans and to promote effective intelligence-gathering. MPAC urges Senator Reid to support this superior bill, which addresses the un-constitutional nature of surveillance tactics used today.
We urge all of our MPAC members to join the fight to preserve constitutional rights. Please sign the online petition against the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping and telecommunications immunity (action.aclu.org/reidpetition).
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