Last week the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted to continue Bush-era warrantless wiretapping when it reauthorized expiring provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). No real surprise there. What’s particularly deranged about the vote is that when amendments were proposed that would simply have tried to find out the precise nature and extent of FISA activity, these were overwhelmingly rejected.
Over at The American Conservative, Jim Antle notes that Senator Jeff Merkley sought to uncover what some of the decisions and precedents of the secret courts that hear requests for warrants under FISA have been, with a proviso that nothing threatening national security would be declassified. The Senate voted to reject that.
Then Senator Ron Wyden wanted a little report on the privacy impact of FISA. “I think we ought to know, generally, how many Americans are being swept up under the legislation,” he said. This, too, was defeated.
Rand Paul proposed that emails and text messages come under Fourth Amendment protections. No interest in that from the Senate at all.