Gonzalez Issues Statement on FISA Amendments Act
This afternoon the House passed an amended version of H.R. 3773, the Responsible Electronic Surveillance that is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective Act of 2007. The legislation updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to equip the intelligence community with meaningful and flexible tools to conduct surveillance while still protecting the constitutional rights of innocent Americans.
"The RESTORE Act makes sure our intelligence community can aggressively target threats with every available tool to fight terrorism," said Congressman Charlie Gonzalez (TX-20).
The amended version also rejects the President's plan to provide blanket immunity to telecommunications companies who allegedly assisted in the Bush Administration's warrantless surveillance program.
"Granting blanket immunity excuses corporations from fulfilling their responsibility to ensure that information under their control is not obtained by the government in an inappropriate and excessive manner. Relieving corporations of this duty invites the wholesale access of all information in their possession by the government even if the government's request is unreasonable and outside established legal guidelines," said Gonzalez.
"The FISA legislation passed by the House today allows for access to all needed information by federal agencies without granting the federal government carte blanche authority to disregard the rule of law. Today's legislation does not impede intelligence information gathering but actually streamlines the process to accommodate modern technological advances and provide our intelligence gathering agencies timely and complete access to all legal requests," he added.
In addition to rejecting the blanket immunity provision, the amended FISA law also:
* Gives the federal court the exclusive opportunity to hear classified evidence and determine whether telecommunications companies should be held liable for their actions;
* Sets tough new wiretapping standards for the National Security Agency; and
* Requires a special, bipartisan commission to investigate the Bush Administration's use of wiretaps and other surveillance programs