The House Judiciary Committee, following the Senate Intelligence Committee's lead, reauthorized the FISA Amendments Act, which retroactively made the Bush surveillance program after 9/11 legal.
Wired News has a great article explaining how this move, if approved by both the House and Senate, will really continue the current state of surveillance capabilities for law enforcement. Efforts to introduce an element of transparency and accountability have been rejected. From the article:
The House Judiciary Committee, following the Senate Intelligence Committee’s lead last month, (.pdf) voted 23-11 to reauthorize the FISA Amendments Act. The legislation, expiring at year’s end, authorizes the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and emails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.”
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At the time (2001), then-senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama voted for the measure, though he said the bill was flawed and that he would push to amend it if elected. Instead, Obama, as president, simply continued the Bush administration’s legal tactics aimed at crushing any judicial scrutiny of the wiretapping program, and his administration is now demanding that federal lawmakers extend the legislation for five years.
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