Section 702 directly contradicts the core language of the Fourth Amendment. Congress, afraid to do nothing, gave Bush these unconstitutional powers to spy on foreigners.Ĭongress enacted Section 702 of FISA, and it expires in six months. It was an emergency, he said, and time for the Constitution to bend before it breaks. Bush sought an amendment to FISA that would enable the feds to engage in warrantless telephone, text messaging and email surveillance upon foreign persons.Įven though the Fourth Amendment protects all people - good people, bad people, Americans, foreigners, people the government hates, people the government fears - Bush persuaded a compliant Congress that there was much to fear from foreign persons. Shortly after the tragedy of 9/11, in order to divert scrutiny from his own sleepy incompetence, President George W. General warrants were directly outlawed by the Fourth Amendment. The FISA warrant issued for all customers of Verizon is a general warrant - search where you wish and seize what you find. The FISA warrants are lawful, but profoundly unconstitutional, as there is no probable cause of crime, nor does the warrant specifically describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized. One infamous FISA search warrant permitted the feds to capture all telephone calls transmitted on all fiber optic cables used by Verizon, which at the time had about 115 million customers. In the case of FISA, the feds do not know what or whom they are looking for. As the amendment requires that all search warrants specifically describe the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized, the feds know that they need to demonstrate a level of knowledge and specificity - probable cause of crime - to the judge from whom they are seeking a warrant. When the feds have told a federal Judge what their probable cause is, what they are looking for, why they believe they will find it and who they think is engaged in criminal activities, they are entitled to a warrant. This is all consistent with FISA but, because it directly violates the Fourth Amendment, it is profoundly unconstitutional. That's ordinary law enforcement, and that's pursuant to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.īut if the feds don't know who you are, but know that you live in a community that has folks who think differently than they do about national security, they can go to the FISA Court and present probable cause - not of crime but of a likelihood of someone communicating with foreign persons - and that court, which grants 99.96% of all requested search warrants, will issue the same search warrant authorizing the same level of government scrutiny as if the feds were looking for evidence of a crime.
Thus, if federal agents suspect you are a drug dealer and have probable cause of crime to present to a judge, the judge may sign a search warrant enabling the feds to listen to your conversations and monitor your text messages and emails.
It limits all domestic surveillance not for law enforcement purposes to the procedures set forth in the act. In response to President Richard Nixon's unlawful use of the FBI and the CIA to spy on his domestic political opponents in the early 1970s, Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow." Even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear. "We may even cheer on those who ask us to.
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