Senate Renews Warrantless Eavesdropping Act

New submitter electron sponge writes "On Friday morning, the Senate renewed the FISA Amendments Act (PDF), which allows for warrantless electronic eavesdropping, for an additional five years. The act, which was originally passed by Congress in 2008, allows law enforcement agencies to access private communications as long as one participant in the communications could reasonably be believed to be outside the United States. This law has been the subject of a federal lawsuit, and was argued before the Supreme Court recently. 'The legislation does not require the government to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the secret FISA court rejects the surveillance application. The court’s rulings are not public.'" The EFF points out that the Senate was finally forced to debate the bill, but the proposed amendments that would have improved it were rejected.

Re:Shows you where their priorities are

[Anonymous Coward]

They have time to debate and pass secret warrantless wiretapping, but not to keep the price of milk from going up to $7.

who gives a poo about Milk, it's unhealthy anyway. :) I'm all for warrantless eavesdropping. Having the Govt able to see if i cal my mom or if i send a text to my wife saying i'm at the store buying dog food is a small price to pay for increased security and making sure some d-bag doesn't bomb a plane that i'm on.