Compromise Bill Will Give Law Vital Update 

“The miracle chip represents a quantum leap in the technology of mankind.” This description is from a 1978 TIME Magazine cover story on microchips, the tiny computer circuitry that dramatically increased the speed of computers leading to significant advances in technology over the past 30 years.  

And 1978 was also the year that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was first passed. FISA is the law that allows our intelligence community to conduct surveillance, including tracking terrorist communications overseas to gather information on future threats, and it is critical to keep our nation safe from attack.  

Today, fiber optic networks route many global communications through the United States. This makes it possible for foreign phone calls between operatives overseas to flow through U.S. facilities. Intelligence officials must first receive approval from the courts before intercepting these communications. Cumbersome and outdated legal processes prevent the intelligence community from acting quickly to conduct necessary surveillance of foreign targets.  

Law was allowed to expire

Instead of working to update the FISA legislation, House Democrats let the law expire in February. Since then, we have spent more than 20 weeks without the ‘real time’ intelligence capability that has helped prevent terrorist attacks in the United States since September 11, 2001. During this time, terrorists have been able to talk to each other undetected through our own telecommunications infrastructure. It is a frightening prospect that we could be missing critical pieces of information because terrorists are using our own laws against us.

Listening to calls of known terrorists has played an important role in keeping Americans safe, and fortunately the U.S. House of Representatives came to a compromise that I supported to improve intelligence collection by updating FISA and closing the gaps created by evolving technology. This compromise balances the needs of our national security with our civil liberties. The House Majority and Minority leadership thankfully agreed to place the security of our country above politics to produce a better law. We now have an agreement on FISA that strengthens America’s surveillance laws and allows our intelligence community to intercept terrorist communications, while continuing to protect the privacy rights of American citizens.

The 1978 TIME cover story on microchips also asserted that “practically any breakthrough in knowledge carries with it the possibility that it will be used for evil.” Sadly, this has proven to be tragically true in many ways, including terrorists using telecommunications systems to coordinate attacks, cell phones to set off improvised explosive devices around the world and the Internet to spread their message of hate and recruit extremists.

Bringing FISA into the 21st Century gives our intelligence community a crucial tool in helping combat these real and immediate threats against our country and protects the American’s civil liberties in the process. Now the U.S. Senate must take up this measure, and I urge them to do it quickly to make sure that we are doing everything possible to detect and prevent potential attacks on the American people.

This editorial by Congressman Zach Wamp appeared in the July 7, 2008, edition of The Tennessean.