Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ( FISA, German law for listening in the foreign intelligence ) is one of the United States Congress in 1978 adopted legislation that regulates the foreign intelligence and counterintelligence in the United States. Different standards are applied to the activities of intelligence services outside the territory of the United States on the one hand and the monitoring of a U.S. citizen and resident in the territory of the United States, immigrants on the other.

Legal

According to the fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States arrests, searches of persons and homes and the seizure of items are permitted only on the basis of confirmed by oath or affidavit probable cause ( reasonable suspicion ). This clause applies to U.S. citizens and to foreigners who reside within the boundaries.

Home

The FISA governs the circumstances under which the Attorney General and acting under the FBI can obtain a search warrant against persons who are suspected on the floor of the United States of spying for a foreign power against the United States. In 1978 it was originally just to electronic surveillance measures, including telephone monitoring and acoustic surveillance of private premises, since 1994 regulates the FISA also the search of dwellings and persons.

For this purpose, was created with the FISA the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ( FISC ) ​​, a dish that meets exclusively for discussion of FISA cases, and must allow the interception or search. In exigent circumstances, the FISC must be informed immediately and may approve the measure later within a week.

Foreign countries

The surveillance of telecommunications outside the United States by the intelligence services requires no Genehmigung.Sie can by the Director of National Intelligence or the Attorney General be arranged for periods of up to one year, if it is reasonably suspected that the target person is physically present abroad, even if it is an American citizen. Compliance with this rule is promised to the FISC, the declarations of 2009 were publicly. About the lawful implementation is the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress ( Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence House of Representatives ) to report.

Interpretation

2013 put the New York Times open, that the FISC has authorized after the enlargement of the Act of 2008 kept secret in several decisions, the National Security Agency to store connection data without further conditions, if access to the collected data only in accordance with the procedural requirements of the Act takes place. It also laid the scope of the law from far, so that not only covered espionage and terrorism under the FISA, but also the trade and transfer of material to nuclear weapons and cyber attacks.

This broad interpretation relies on the word relevant to the protection of national security must be interpreted differently than it has so far been defined by the Supreme Court of the United States in the field of criminal law. Accordingly, the whole database must be removed demanded, so that in individual cases can then be searched in them.

History

The FISA and the FISC were created in 1978 as a response to the investigations of the Church Committee, a committee of inquiry of the U.S. Senate in 1975 /76 the sometimes illegal activities of U.S. intelligence agencies. The authorization for wiretapping abroad initially affected only foreign nationals. In 1994, the FISA has been extended to the physical searches of premises and persons.

Under the PATRIOT Act was amended in October 2001, the impressions of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the FISA. Since then, not only cases subject to the law, where is the counterintelligence "the purpose " of the surveillance or search, but also those in which it " a significant purpose " of the measure is merely. End of 2005, in which the New York Times that the administration of George W. Bush, despite the softening and the extended powers has systematically broken the law thousands of times the communications of Americans abroad could listen with the U.S..

2007, the foreign clause were loosened the Protect America Act. Future were all legal persons - even Americans - are bugged if it could be reasonably suspected that they are abroad. The federal government provided this represents an adaptation to the changing possibilities of electronic communication: foreigners and Americans abroad use e- mail accounts at U.S. providers, international phone calls and Internet connections are through the U.S. routed even if start and end points abroad are, in packet-switched networks, the communications of Americans and foreigners is indistinguishable. Civil rights groups kept the change for the complete release of the surveillance. The Act had a sunset clause and entered in February 2008 automatically expire.

In July 2008, Congress agreed to after a long debate an amendment to the FISA, in which the provisions of the preceding year were retained until 2012. It was also unlawful acting government agencies and employees, as well as the telecommunications companies that had given them free access to the network infrastructure, subsequently granted indemnity. In addition, the destruction of statutory protocols was subsequently allowed and increases the time for subsequent approval imminent danger 48 hours to one week. At the same time, Congress made ​​it clear that the communications of Americans abroad can be monitored only on the basis of a law and the U.S. president called to neither extended powers in the event of martial law nor a general immunity of the executive branch from interference of the judiciary (executive privilege ) allowed to circumvent the requirements of the Act. A further extension to this time five years occurred at the end 2012.Vorlage: Future / In 3 years, the extension had been delayed by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon for several months because he criticized the application of the law. He made ​​known that the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in at least one previously classified as secret processes, the application of the law found incompatible and requires stronger regulations for the protection of civil rights.

Late 2012 and early 2013 had the Supreme Court of the United States on several occasions lawsuits against FISA as inadmissible because the applicants such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and PEN U.S. could not prove that their communication was monitored. The abstract danger was not enough for the court for a legal review.