U.S. President George W. Bush called on Congress on Saturday to modernize a law that governs how intelligence agencies can monitor terrorist suspects inside the country.
In his weekly radio address, Bush said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was enacted in 1978, "provides a critical legal foundation" that allows the intelligence community to monitor terrorist communications.
But the law "addressed the technologies of that era," he said.
"This law is badly out of date -- and Congress must act to modernize it," Bush added.
The president said the United States faced sophisticated terrorists who use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate with each other, recruit operatives, and plan attacks on our country, and technologies like these were not available when the law was passed nearly 30 years ago.
To fix the problem, Bush said, the administration has proposed a bill that would modernize the law.
The proposal had four key reforms, such bringing the law up to date with the changes in communications technology; allowing the government to work more efficiently with private-sector entities like communications providers; and streamlining administrative processes so the intelligence community can gather foreign intelligence more quickly and more effectively, he said.
Bush authorized domestic eavesdropping program shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks that allows the National Security Agency to monitor, without court warrants, international telephone calls and e-mails of people inside the United States with suspected ties to al Qaeda.
The program, first revealed by The New York Times in December 2005, has been criticized by Democrats and some Republicans who believe that Bush may have overstepped his constitutional authority and violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires warrants for all domestic electronic eavesdropping.
Source: Xinhua
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