Robert Parry on the "Protect America Act of 2007"

god, ya gotta love the choice of words... the more i see the "Protect America Act," the more i wanna heave my guts out... when, fercryinoutloud, are we gonna get rid of this bunch...? my preference would be for some time PRIOR to the complete gutting of the united states constitution and the full establishment of a fascist state...

U.S. news reports mostly parroted the White House claim that the law “modernizes” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance of 1978 and “narrowly” targets overseas terror suspects who call or e-mail their contacts in the United States. But the “Protect America Act of 2007” actually casts the wiretapping net much wider.

The law applies not just to terror suspects abroad who might communicate with Americans at home, but to anyone who is “reasonably believed to be outside the United States” and who might possess “foreign intelligence information,” defined as anything that could be useful to U.S. foreign policy.

That means that almost any American engaged in international commerce or dealing with foreign issues – say, a businessman in touch with a foreign subsidiary or a U.S. reporter sending an overseas story back to his newspaper – is vulnerable to warrantless intercepts approved on the say-so of two Bush subordinates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.

Beyond the breathtaking scope of this new authority, the Bush administration also snuck in a clause that grants immunity from lawsuits to communications service providers that comply with spying directives from Gonzales and McConnell.

[...]

Though getting almost no attention in the U.S. press coverage, the immunity paragraph reads: “Notwithstanding any other law, no cause of action shall lie in any court against any person for providing any information, facilities, or assistance in accordance with a directive under this section.”

In other words, U.S. citizens, who believe that warrantless surveillance has violated their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, will have no legal recourse against the service provider that collaborated with the government.

This immunity provision is important, too, because the only meaningful safeguard against abuse of the new spying power was that service providers could challenge a wiretap directive through a secret court proceeding.

[...]

The Bush administration’s goal was to scoop up any information that might be interesting to the intelligence community, not just what was needed to protect the nation from a terrorist attack.

It’s also unclear what restrictions apply to the year-long surveillance directives if the target enters – or reenters – the United States. Under the law as written, there’s no indication that the service provider must be notified that the 12-month order should be suspended if the target steps onto U.S. territory.

Conceivably, therefore, a directive aimed at an American traveling overseas might stay in effect after the target returned home, with the service provider continuing to give the National Security Agency access to the target’s phone calls and e-mails.

good news for those of us who spend a great deal of time outside of the united states... of course, after the warrantless seizure of my laptop, cd's, dvd's, digital camera and flash memory while coming through u.s. customs upon returning to the u.s. a little over a year ago, and not returning them for over three weeks, i suppose i should just prepare myself, eh...?

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