I've calmed down (just a little, not much) about the passage of the FISA bill. I figured I'd wait until the initial rush of anger was gone before writing on this subject. I'm going to write a series on what each aspect of the FISA bill is and its significance.

Sweeping Wiretapping Powers

The NY Times broke the story in December 2005 that the Bush Administration had been illegally wiretapping Americans emails and phone calls in violation of the law and the 4th Amendment in the Constitution which protects our right to privacy. It later came out that the Bush Administration had approached the telecoms about the wiretapping in February of 2001, long before 9/11.

Once busted, the Bush Administration claimed that the Unitary Executive Theory allowed them unbridaled powers to protect America. They claimed that the FISA courts hamstrung their efforts. This is despite the fact that these courts had only rejected a handful of requests since their inception in 1978 and the Bush Administration could apply for a wiretap up to 72 hours after it was put in place.

They had begun their efforts to protect Americans from terrorists well prior to 9/11. This doesn't exactly jibe with their ignoring all the warning signs leading up to 9/11 that have been documented best by Richard Clarke.

We will likely never know the extent to which the Bush Administration was listening to Americans phone calls and reading our emails. The telecoms have been granted immunity and Bush will likely pardon everyone involved prior to the end of his administration.

We do know that the National Security Administration (NSA) and the Pentagon had been working on the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program that got quashed by Congress. The TIA was a vast surveillance database that would cull through virtually all communication in the US. The publicly acknowledged purpose according Adm. John Poindexter was to track terror suspects. This program was probably never actually suppressed and is most likely what the Bush Administration has used to comb through the vast terrabytes of data.

The most overlooked fact in the entire FISA debate -- the aspect of it that renders incoherent the case in favor of the new FISA law or even those who dismiss its significance -- is that virtually nobody knows what the spying program they're immunizing entailed and towards what ends it was used -- i.e., whether it was abused for improper purposes. Even those who acknowledge that the warrantless spying program was illegal like to assert that it was implemented for benign and proper counter-terrorism purposes (see Kevin Drum making that claim here) -- but they have absolutely no idea whether that is true. None. Zero. To assert that is simply to make assertions with no basis whatsoever.

There has been no Congressional investigation into the NSA program -- meaning an effort to compel the Bush administration to turn over to Congress information about who was subjected to the illegal, warrantless spying and towards what purposes. Back in March, 2006, even the Senate Intelligence Committee -- the core function of which is "to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States" -- voted along party lines against conducting hearings into the NSA spying program.
(Glenn Greenwald)

Only a select few in the Senate were aware of the full extent of the violation of the FISA laws and our right to privacy. Sen. Russ Feingold was one of them. He sits on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committee.

I sit on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, and I am one of the few members of this body who has been fully briefed on the warrantless wiretapping program. And, based on what I know, I can promise that if more information is declassified about the program in the future, as is likely to happen either due to the Inspector General report, the election of a new President, or simply the passage of time, members of this body will regret that we passed this legislation. I am also familiar with the collection activities that have been conducted under the Protect America Act and will continue under this bill. I invite any of my colleagues who wish to know more about those activities to come speak to me in a classified setting. Publicly, all I can say is that I have serious concerns about how those activities may have impacted the civil liberties of Americans. If we grant these new powers to the government and the effects become known to the American people, we will realize what a mistake it was, of that I am sure.
(Howie Klein at Huffington Post)

Yet the House and then the Senate Democrats caved in granted President Bush, the most unpopular President in the the history of the United States, everything he wanted. In the end 26 opposed the bill, but only 16 defended our right to privacy when it really mattered two weeks ago when we had a realistic shot at filibustering the bill.

The new statute permits the NSA to intercept phone calls and e-mails between the U.S. and a foreign location, without making any showing to a court and without judicial oversight, whether or not the communication has anything to do with al Qaeda -- indeed, even if there is no evidence that the communication has anything to do with terrorism, or any threat to national security.
(Balkanization)