Protect America Is A Act

5/13/1778 James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, “Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.”

A surveillance law, called the Protect America Act, which is an amendment to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, pushed through Congress and signed by Bush last Sunday, will allow the government to monitor phone calls and e-mails without a warrant. If you engage in any international communication, this will impact you

The Government has been illegally spying on us since before 9/11.

Corporate giants such as Verizon and AT&T have helped them do this by passing on their customers communications and information without a warrent.

Now the corporate stooges in congress want to give corperate america carblach to commit crimes against the American people and to violate the constitution; on top of seeding more power to the executive branch.

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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 is a U.S. federal law prescribing procedures for the physical & electronic surveillance & collection of "foreign intelligence information" between or among "foreign powers" on territory under United States control.

FISA is codified in 50 U.S.C. 1801--1811, 1821--29, 1841--46, and 1861--62.

The subchapters of FISA provide for:

- Electronic Surveillance
- Physical Searches
- Pen Registers and Trap & Trace Devices for Foreign Intelligence Purposes
- Access to certain Business Records for Foreign Intelligence Purposes

The act created a court which meets in secret, & approves or denies requests for search warrants.
Only the number of warrants applied for, issued and denied, is reported.

In 1980 (the first full year after its inception), it approved 322 warrants.
This number has steadily grown to 2224 warrants in 2006.
Only 5 warrants have been rejected since the court first met in 1979.

The Act was amended by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, primarily to include terrorism on behalf of groups that are not specifically backed by a foreign government.

An overhaul of the bill, the Protect America Act of 2007 was signed into law on 2007-08-05.

12/16/05 "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts," New York Times

Hamdan and the NSA Domestic Surveillance What Next?

6/9/06 Supreme Court’s Ruling in Hamdan Means Warrantless Eavesdropping is Clearly Illegal

6/19/06 U.S. Department of Justice White Paper on NSA Legal Authorities"Legal Authorities Supporting the Activities of the National Security Agency Described by the President"

6/30/06 Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say ~Bloomberg Press

8/1/07 S. 1927: Protect America Act of 2007
Sponsor: Sen. Mitch McConnell [R-KY]
Status: Enacted

8/4/07 ACLU Condemns Senate for Passing Spy Law Changes

8/5/07 House Approves Wiretap Measure Washington Post

8/6/07 Charlie Savage, Globe Staff, "New law expands power to wiretap Diminishes oversight of NSA spy program"


8/7/07 Aziz Huq writes, "Data-Mining Our Liberties"
Greenwald: New FISA Law Means Admin ‘Can Listen To Every Single International Call That You Make’

8/11/08 Univ. of Chicago Law Professor, What does the amendment authorize? Until last weekend, FISA prohibited the government from intercepting any international telephone call or email communication involving persons in the United States without a warrant from the FISA court based upon probable cause. The amendment authorizes the government to wiretap or intercept any international communication, even if one of the participants is an American citizen on American soil, as long as the intercept is undertaken for foreign intelligence purposes and is “directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.”
Anonymous Liberal, Why the new FISA bill is even worse than you think


There is no requirement that the government must obtain a search warrant from the FISA court, and no requirement that the government must have probable cause to believe that the person “reasonably believed to be outside of the United States” is a terrorist or even an associate of terrorists. The new legislation empowers the Attorney to authorize such surveillance as long as the purpose is to gather “foreign intelligence” and the surveillance is “directed at a person reasonably believed to be outside the United States.”

Why should we care about this law? In general, United States law (statutory and constitutional) does not restrict the ability of the government to search the homes of people in Iraq, to read the mail of people in France, or to wiretap telephone calls in Japan. Why is the new law any different?

When the government intercepts telephone calls and email exchanges between an American in Chicago and a foreign national in Berlin it intrudes upon the privacy of both parties to the communication. Such surveillance invades the privacy of the American in Chicago just as much when the exchange is with someone in Berlin as when it is with someone in Miami. That the surveillance is “directed at a person reasonably believed to be outside the United States” is no consolation to the American in Chicago.

Until last weekend, the law did not define the privacy interest of the American in Chicago in terms of whether he was speaking or emailing with a person in Miami or Berlin. In either case, because the surveillance invaded the privacy of an American on American soil, the government needed probable cause and a warrant.

The simple and proper solution to this “problem” to require the government to obtain a warrant based upon a showing of probable cause whenever it wants to tap a telephone call or read an email exchange involving an American on American soil. That was the law before last weekend and there is no good reason why it should not be the law now."

Executive Summary of Grave Concerns about the FISA bill, S. 1927 From the Center for National Security Studies.



9/18/07 Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testifies before the House Judiciary Committee to defend the August revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.



Statement for the Record to the House Judiciary Committee by Director John Michael McConnell

09/19/07 Congressman Cohen questions Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth Wainstein on the problems with the Protect America Act and how it undermines the protections of FISA and the Fourth Amendment.



9/19/07. Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush speaking about the Protect America Act of 2007 at Fort George G. Meade, MD.




10/18/07 Department of Justice Website Illegally Lobbies Congress: LifeAndLiberty.gov

11/01/07 President Bush delivered an address about the Global War on Terror at The Heritage Foundation on Thursday. Bush spoke about the importance of making the Protect America Act permanent, confirming Michael Mukasey as attorney general, and getting a clean Iraq supplemental from Congress.



12/07/07 - SPIES, LIES AND VIDEO TAPE ~OLBERMANN



12/26/07 Keith Olbermann's report on all of the Bush scandals you may have forgotten about because of the latest Bush scandals that have your head over loaded. Tonights: MRAP-Gate, We Lied to You About Troop Reductions-Gate and Nexus of Politics & Terror-Gate



A senate floor speech on fisa and the law - executive orders, article 2, doj. text at: http://whitehouse.senate.gov/record.c also see http://whitehouse.senate.gov/





02/26/08 U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx speaks before the House of Representatives in favor of making the Protect America Act permanent and closing the FISA loopholes.



02/27/08 Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, addresses the need to renew the Protect America Act. Signed into law in August 2007, the bill expired Feb. 16, 2008, greatly...



"If the phone companies really want immunity, here's how they need to scare us," Colbert added. "Make one of those robo calls where celebrity gives away personalized promotional phone message. in this case, the message is fear. and the celebrity is Osama bin laden."

"Nation, call your congressman and tell them you want America to be protected," Colbert concluded. "In fact, call anyone. The right people will be listening."

This video is from Comedy Central's Colbert Report, broadcast March 6, 2008.



During the February 13 debate on electronic surveillance, Rep Rush Holt (NJ-12)urges the House to reject a temporary extension of the Protect America Act. Instead Holt supports a bill passed in November that would provide the Intelligence Community with the tools it needs to conduct surveillance of foreign targets outside the United States, while restoring individual rights protections.
He) urges members of Congress to be patient in debating electronic surveillance legislation and to never pass legislation under "duress brought on by propaganda, misinformation, and fear mongering."

Nancy Pelosi, "The House is debating whether to extend by 21 days the Protect America Act. In November the House passed the RESTORE Act, which provides the Intelligence Community with effective tools to conduct surveillance of foreign targets outside the United States but restores Constitutional checks and balances that were not contained in the Protect America Act. Last night the Senate passed a bill amending FISA with which Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, amongst many others, expressed serious concerns. The 21 day extension would allow the House sufficient time to address both the security and liberty consideration. Chairman John Conyers of the Judiciary Committee, spoke in favor of the extension and noted that some of the same telecommunications companies Republicans demand immunity for at one point shut down wiretaps because of delinquent phone bills."



Nancy Pelosi, "The House debates the RESTORE Act of 2007 (Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective). This bill provides the Intelligence Community with effective tools to conduct surveillance of foreign targets outside the United States but restores Constitutional checks and balances that were not contained in President Bush's bill, the Protect America Act (PAA)." Speaker Pelosi speaks in favor.



Rep. Lloyd Doggett does not.



Rep. Arcuri - 21 Day Extension on FISA Law



Democrats denounce a Republican Motion to Recommit containing redundant language with the intent of "effectively killing the measure by delay" as the Washington Post recently described it.



Also on February 13th, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. released the following statement to President Bush’s commitment to work on foreign surveillance legislation through the recess:

“The President’s efforts to cast blame on FISA, echoed by his allies in Congress, show an appalling disregard for the facts. He threatened to veto any extension of the Protect America Act and, following his lead, every single Republican in the House voted against the 21 day extension I sponsored in the House. The President and House Republicans cannot have it both ways, simultaneously arguing that the PAA is essential to national security and also engineering the defeat of an extension of it. The consequences for inaction are their responsibility.

“Unfortunately, it is the same old tired rhetoric of fear that the country overwhelmingly rejected in the 2006 elections.

“From what I have seen from the Justice Department documents so far, there is no need to provide amnesty to telecommunication companies who are protected under current law, as long as they and the government are acting accordingly. I have not seen anything that leads me to believe, as the President seems to believe, that providing amnesty to these companies is a more compelling public interest than our Constitutionally protected right to privacy. We must maintain our civil liberties and give the government the tools it needs to collect intelligence information, but I do not believe telecom amnesty is necessary in order to accomplish that goal.

“I have told my colleagues in the House that I am committed to working through this recess and will be discussing this legislation with Chairman Reyes and Senators Leahy and Rockefeller. I appreciate the President’s dedication to seeing this through and hope that he will join me in putting Americans before corporate interests.”

Chairman Conyers and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, spoke against telecom amnesty yesterday during debate on the 21 day extension:



Rep. Conyers: “Amd so Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that we put into the record at this point CNN.com news, ‘Phone Companies Cut FBI Wiretaps Due to Unpaid Bills.’ A lot’s been said about what some call ‘patriotic phone companies.’ Are these the same companies that cut off the FBI FISA wiretaps because the FBI hadn’t paid its phone bill? This is breaking news. I ask unanimous consent that we examine this issue and that we include it in the ones in the 21-day period.”

Rep. Nadler: “We have been told if we pass telecom immunity and if we fail to control abuse of the state secrets privilege that has been abused by the administration to prevent the courts of the congress from reviewing what they have done, there will be no mechanisms in the courts or in congress to know, let alone to control, what the executive is doing. the separation of powers established by the constitution to protect our liberties will have been destroyed. that where lies the slow death of liberty. It must not be permitted. We’ve been told by this administration, ‘trust us.’ I’m not in a very trusting mood these days.”



Rep. Jan Schakowsky reading her script.



Rep. Alcee Hastings



In solidarity with Bush's need for telecom immunity republicans walk out of congress.



1/29/08 S. 1927: Protect America Act of 2007

A bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to provide additional procedures for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence information and for other purposes.

From Congresspedia
"On August 3 & 4, 2007, both the Senate and House, respectively, passed the Protect America Act of 2007 (S.1927) to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), which required the president to receive approval from a FISA court before authorizing wiretaps on U.S. citizens. President Bush signed the bill into law on August 5. The legislation was only authorized, however, for 180 days, requiring further congressional action. The Senate and House have separately considered the RESTORE Act, which would make permanent many FISA reforms."

1/31/08 Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann Special Comment: In a Presidency of hypocrisy; an Administration of exploitation; a labyrinth of leadership, in which every vital fact is a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma hidden under a claim of executive privilege supervised by an idiot, this one, is surprisingly easy.

President Bush has put protecting the Telecom giants from the laws ahead of protecting you from the terrorists.

On February 17, 2008, the Protect America Act expired due to sunset provision.

He has demanded an extension of the FYCA law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but only an extension that includes retroactive immunity for the Telecoms who helped him spy on you.



02/18/08 MSNBC Countdown : Worst : Bush continues to lie



02/19/08 On his CNN Headline News show, neo-conservative talking head Glenn Beck fumed about the House leadership's decision to let the Protect America Act (PAA) expire this weekend. This was "an extension requested by the president," exclaimed Beck.

Beck then jumped on President Bush's fearmongering bandwagon, claiming that the House leadership — specifically Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — would be responsible for the death of Americans



2/19/08 Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley discusses the Supreme Court's decision to turn down the ACLU's legal challenge to President Bush's domestic spying program.



02/21/08 This is a new propaganda ad by the GOP meant to scare everyone into supporting the legislation that provides immunity to the telecoms that assist in monitoring phone data.

"House democrats have allowed the Protect America Act to expire. The Protect America Act allows our intelligence agents to intercept the plots of foreign terrorists. House Republicans demand immediate action to keep america safe."



03/07/08 After Wednesday's low-yield bomb in Times Square, Ollie North said The U.S. House of Representatives at the direction of Nancy Pelosi went on vacation rather than voting on the Protect America Act, which provided for wiretapping of terrorists making phone calls into and out of the United States to foreign places...



Text of the bill is here.