We’ve been trying to follow the FISA debate but it’s not been easy since there’s a lot of politically charged rhetoric going around. The ACLU has done some fact-checking to try and help out.
The major sticking point seems to be whether or not there should be immunity for the telecommunications companies that aided the president’s warrantless wiretapping program — the Senate bill has it, the House bill does not. As we noted in August, 2006, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor found the NSA’s wiretapping program unconstitutional. So it would seem that the telecom companies broke the law and violated their customers’ privacy rights in participating in the NSA program. This, then, is why the administration is pushing for their immunity. See the Electronic Frontier Foundation for more information.
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