January 31, 2008

Dear Senator:

We are writing to urge you to support the amendment to the pending FISA bill being offered by Senators Feingold, Webb, and Tester that is critical to prevent the authorization of widespread surveillance of Americans' international communications. The original co-sponsors of the amendment also include Senators Biden, Sanders, Kennedy, Menendez, Akaka, and Dodd.

The administration is urging adoption of the pending SSCI bill in order to provide necessary counterterrorism tools.  The bill, however, goes far beyond terrorism and would authorize the capture of the communications of millions of innocent Americans.   The Feingold Webb Tester amendment would meet the administration's national security concerns while providing constitutionally required protections for Americans' privacy.

The administration claims that it can no longer obtain FISA court orders for the secret monitoring of Americans' international communications from telecommunications facilities in the United States for two main reasons. First, it does not always know whether one end of a communication is with someone in the United States.  Second, it claims that being required to obtain a FISA court order will interfere with its ability to acquire terrorism-related communications (a claim with which we do not agree).  The bill reported by the Intelligence Committee would allow widespread monitoring of Americans' international communications in much broader circumstances with no prior court order, no determination of probable cause, and no adequate after-the-fact safeguards.

The Feingold Webb Tester amendment would meet the administration's national security concerns by providing an exemption from the FISA court order requirements where the government does not know that one end of the communication is with someone in the United States, or where the communications relate to terrorist activities.

We have many concerns about the pending legislation.  We focus here on the Feingold Webb Tester amendment because it goes to the heart of the matter:  it would protect the privacy of Americans while meeting intelligence collection needs.

We urge you to vote yes on the amendment being offered by Senators Webb, Feingold, and Tester.  We urge a no vote on final passage if the amendment fails.

Sincerely,

Kate Martin
Director
Center for National Security Studies

Morton H. Halperin
Executive Director
Open Society Policy Center

Mark Agrast

Senior Fellow

Center for American Progress Action Fund

Caroline Fredrickson

Director

ACLU Washington Legislative Office

Kevin Bankston

Senior Staff Attorney

Electronic Frontier Foundation