Alumni Report: Why the FISA Amendment Blows!

February 13, 2008 - 10:30 am By Rob - UPENN

fisaCutting right to it, our privacy is the issue…or rather, it was the issue.

The Senate voted 69-29-2 to let the Telecom companies off the hook for their role in revealing private consumer information to the intelligence community (Hillary pussed out and didn’t vote). Everyone knew at the time that this went against the Constitution, but there was an unwritten agreement that there would never be prosecution. To make sure of that, a FISA amendment was passed.

FISA stands for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but here is the bitch – it doesn’t make provisions for wide-scale domestic surveillance. This was the act that was used to get wire-tapping authority, even though it had no domestic precedent. It was like declaring war against another country because of something you heard on the street in the US…ok…bad example. (more…)

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