American Civil Liberties Union

It’s official.  The Senate voted 72-23 last week to extend the FISA Amendments Act another five years, which President Obama signed Sunday. Unfortunately, the public discussion of George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program may soon fade back into the shadows.

The heartbreak of another Senate vote in favor of dragnet collection of Americans’ communications, however, pales in comparison to the rejection of modest amendments in favor of more FISA transparency and accountability. These amendments would not have limited the government’s spying program in any way; they would have only compelled the government to tell the public what the law says and whether it protects us from government prying.

The Bipartisan Policy Center published a report last week called, “Countering Online Radicalization in America,” which strongly endorsed First Amendment principles in rejecting censorship as an appropriate tactic for addressing violent extremist content on the Internet.  The report evaluated the many methods governments around the world use to censor the Internet – including filtering or blacklisting online content, taking down websites (either through legal means, cyber attacks or appealing to private sector providers), and prosecuting Internet content producers – and rejected them all as both ineffective in stopping the spread of undesirable ideas, and an affront to American values: “For the United States, the cost-benefit analysis would be even clearer:  with its long and cherished tradition of free speech, the creation of a nationwide system of censorship is virtually inconceivable.”  But the BPC’s positive recommendations are potentially undermined by its continuing embrace of a radicalization theory that draws too close a causal connection between “radical” ideas and violent action.

How many different ways does Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) have to ask the government the number of Americans it has spied on under its warrantless wiretapping program before he can get a straight answer?  So far, it’s at least three and counting.

Wyden’s public inquiry concerning surveillance of Americans under the FISA Amendments Act (FISA) started with a letter to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in July 2011.  The DNI told him “it is not reasonably possible to identify the number” of Americans who had been spied on.

The next time you send an email or make a phone call to a friend outside the country, consider this: the National Security Agency could be making a copy of your communication and storing it.