We cannot go up on a wire. We cannot do a search without a judge on the FISA Court approving it and determining that we have met the standard that has been set forth by Congress in order to utilize these techniques.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The point I wanted to make was, as we have moved forward on the war on terrorism, FISA has been increasingly effective in terms of results.
The FISA Amendment Act of 2008 actually allows some of the things we were doing under the president's authority only against al Qaeda, it allows them for all legitimate foreign intelligence purposes.
While Congress saw some need to loosen the standard in the initial days of a war, it wanted the president to comply with FISA in carrying out surveillance in the United States.
If we are going to conduct espionage in the future, we are going to have to make some changes in the relationship between the intelligence community and the public it serves.
The aggressive use of wiretaps is important: It shows that we are targeting white-collar insider-trading rings with the same powerful investigative tools that have worked so successfully against the mob and drug cartels.
We have some material on spying by a major government on the tech industry. Industrial espionage.
If we have to do enhanced interrogation on terrorists, then I can live with that.
It is up to the government to keep the government's secrets.
It is illegal for the CIA to spy on Americans and an affront to our Republic to spy on the Senate.
It's actually quite criminal how 'The Wire' was systematically ignored.