Resources
House Leaves Surveillance Law to Expire
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/washington/15fisa.html
Bush, Congress in spy bill standoff
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080215/ap_on_go_co/terrorist_surveillance
Senate OKs Immunity for Telecoms
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hJKgeE0Z-SivATjok-utYBdh9wDwD8UOTR1G0
Even on Break, Congress Fights Over Wiretapping Bill
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/even-on-break-congress-fights-over-wiretapping-bill/?hp
The Fourth Amendment
http://citizenbee.org/user/StudentGuide.aspx?id=793
Discussion Questions
- How do the House and Senate surveillance bills differ?
The Bill passed by the Senate includes immunity for telecommunications companies so they cannot be sued for providing private data to the government or helping the NSA with warrant-less eavesdropping.
- Why does the Senate bill include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies?
Large carriers including AT&T and Verizon are facing approximately forty lawsuits over their alleged assistance to the NSA program. The Senate bill would continue compelling telecoms to provide data and assist with wiretaps, and believes they will not do so if they know they will face lawsuits.
- Why is the House refusing to approve a bill which includes immunity for telecoms?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stated that the House is trying to balance national security with civil liberties. The House believes the President already has enough expanded surveillance power and that he is using scare tactics to gain more power.
- What will happen if the “Protect America Act” expires?
The orders forcing telecommunications companies to comply with the government and the liability protections disappear when the law expires, says Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. He told the Associated Press on Thursday, “There is no longer a way to compel [require] the private sector to help us.”
If the law expires, current wiretaps will continue for one year from the date they began. Request for new wiretaps will need to go through the requirements of last August: the executive branch will have to get a court-approved wiretap by going through the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This would require that they establish “probable cause,” as required by the Fourth Amendment, that an international target is connected to a terrorist group.
- The Fourth Amendment says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Why do you think the Founders included the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights?
The Founders were concerned with preventing unreasonable government intrusion into private spaces, such as homes, personal papers and effects. The Founders also believed that governments naturally tended to want more power than was granted to them by the people. Therefore, they built a system of checks and balances into the Constitution. Each branch can “check” the others if it attempts to go outside its constitutional limits.
- If you were a member of the House, would you vote to pass the Senate bill granting immunity to telecoms? Why or why not?
Answers will vary.
Extension
Have students read the following quotations and select one to which they would like to respond. How does the quotation apply to this situation?
- It is a measure of the framers’ fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself. –Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, 1984
- Give me liberty, or give me death! –Patrick Henry, 1775
- I think there is probably joy throughout the terrorist cells throughout the world that the United States Congress did not do its duty today. Representative Ted Poe, (R)-Texas, 2008
- They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. –Benjamin Franklin, 1755
- I urge you to enact such laws [that] do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out…. For what we are seeking now, what in my mind is the single thought of this message, is national efficiency and security. –Woodrow Wilson, 1915
