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U.S. Congress approves bill on warrantless wiretapping terror suspects (2) |
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14:43, August 05, 2007 |
The measure, approved by the Senate on a 60-28 vote Friday, updates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and acts as a compromise between Senate Democrats and the Bush administration.
The law originally required a court review of Bush''s spying program targeting foreign terrorism suspects before it could proceed.
Bush called on Congress last week to modernize the law that governs how intelligence agencies can monitor terrorist suspects inside the country.
The law "provides a critical legal foundation" that allows the intelligence community to monitor terrorist communications, but "is badly out of date -- and Congress must act to modernize it," he said.
Bush authorized the 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-Qaida.
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 law.
Senate Democrats agreed to allow the program to proceed without court warrants, after Bush has threatened to veto a Democratic alternative that would have required a court review of the spying program.
The bill, however, limits that authority to only six months so that the Congress can have enough time to work out a more comprehensive plan.
Source: Xinhua
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