Speaking of our fascist Attorney General John Ashcroft (see Tuesday’s posting),
Three U.S. senators have introduced legislation to enhance congressional oversight and public reporting of the FBI’s domestic surveillance efforts, including the agency’s efforts to monitor Internet activity by Americans. The bill would require public accounting of the number of Americans subjected to surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the number of times FISA information is used for law enforcement purposes.
FISA has been at the heart of an ongoing legal battle between privacy activists and the Department of Justice over how much latitude the Attorney General has in spying on Americans. Last May, the lower FISA court, noting numerous surveillance abuses including serious factual and legal errors in over 75 warrant applications, rejected the Attorney General’s bid for expanded spying authority.