Senate committee approves surveillance bills

An advocacy group called a U.S. government surveillance authorization bill, approved by a Senate committee Wednesday, one of the worst bills imaginable for people concerned about civil liberties.

The National Security Surveillance Act, one of three surveillance bills approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would give congressional authorization to a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program that critics have complained is illegal. The bill, sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, "would radically undermine the privacy of innocent Americans," the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) said Thursday.

The Specter bill would allow the U.S. government to conduct surveillance programs without court warrants for individual cases as long as the surveillance program is approved ahead of time by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This court is sometimes called FISA after the legislation created it.

Specter defended his bill as necessary to help the U.S. government fight terrorism. The bill addresses "a national security issue," he said after the committee vote.

The Judiciary Committee also approved a second bill, sponsored by Ohio Republican Senator Mike DeWine, allowing the U.S. president to authorize surveillance programs for up to 45 days without a court order. The U.S. attorney general can then review the program and continue it for another 45 days without a court order.

The DeWine bill requires that the president report the programs to congressional subcommittees, but it also allows a 15-year prison sentence and a US$1 million fine to anyone who leaks the details of secret surveillance programs.

The CDT include the Specter bill on its list of nine legislation efforts that "must be stopped" this year. The bill will give the U.S. government "broader authority to spy on Americans ... without judicial review," the group said. "Cutting the intelligence agencies loose from any checks and balances in this way can actually harm national security, since unfocused fishing expeditions are likely to produce more false leaders than valuable intelligence."

Other civil liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, have also raised privacy concerns about the Specter and DeWine bills.

With U.S. President George Bush pushing for Congress to authorize the NSA program, the bill is likely to get action on the Senate floor this month, said Leslie Harris, CDT's executive director. "The FISA bill has taken on a political life of its own," she said.

Congress may work to pass the FISA bills during the last weeks of the session as lawmakers up for re-election in November try to show their constituents they're tough on terrorism, Harris said.

Bush has said he believes the NSA program is legal, but he's called on Congress to authorize the surveillance as a way to head off legal challenges to it.

A third bill, which gives the FISA court more funding and resources, also passed out of the Judiciary Committee. Most civil liberties groups have not objected to that bill, sponsored by Specter and Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat.

The CDT's watch list of "dangerous" tech legislation is online.

"We're trying to shame [lawmakers] to better behavior," Harris said. "Even if one of these misguided legislative gambits succeeds, we will all be the worse for it."