Down to the Wire on Wiretapping
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"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
~Fourth Amendment, U.S. Constitution
Your senators will very likely vote next week on whether to give the U.S. government sweeping new powers that undermine individual rights under the Fourth Amendment.
This rewrite of the law governing surveillance of foreign terrorism suspects would expand the government's authority to monitor the international phone calls or email of all individuals without a warrant. The government would be able to monitor communications without getting a court warrant specific to an individual or having to show that it has a reasonable belief that someone has committed a crime.
The bill would also virtually guarantee immunity for phone companies that have helped the government spy, violating current law. The bill provides for court review of immunity, but it requires the court to excuse any company that had a written request from the White House to violate the law. All of the companies have such notes. The House passed this bill as H.R. 6304 by a wide margin in late June.
The U.S government needs to be able to gather effective intelligence, but this bill goes too far and does too little to protect the privacy of people whose communications are being monitored.
Contact your senators today and urge them to vote no on H.R. 6304.
Find out more
FCNL joined a letter with dozens of national organizations urging senators to oppose this expansion of government spying. Excerpts from the letter are below. You can see the entire letter on FCNL's website.
This bill unreasonably and unnecessarily authorizes broad surveillance of Americans' international communications without meaningful Fourth Amendment protections: no individualized warrant issued by a court, no determination of probable cause of wrongdoing, and no specification of the location or means of the surveillance.
Among the most important reasons to oppose this bill are the following:
- The bill would authorize massive warrantless surveillance.
- The bill would require no individualized warrant even when an American's communications clearly are of interest to the government.
- The bill would curtail effective judicial review of surveillance.
- The bill would grant retroactive immunity for wrongdoing.
Contact your members of Congress through FCNL's web site.
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Sen. ________
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Rep. ________
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
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