Why Did the FISA Vote Matter?

Earlier this week, the Congress passed the so-called “FISA Update” legislation that the Bush Administration had been demanding for months. For those of you not familiar, FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The original bill, created some 30 years ago to curtail unconstitutional government spying, forced the Executive Branch to get court-approved warrants for surveillance. This oversight has been key in maintaining the Constitutional rights of Americans from unwarranted spying. It has just been gutted.

In addition to allowing the Executive branch to gather vast amounts of information without oversight, it also grants immunity from civil prosecution to major telecommunications firms who cooperated with illegal government spying programs over the last eight years. This means that Americans who were illegally spied on have no civil recourse to the courts.

There is much anger and outrage at this abrogation of 4th Amendment rights and the unconstitutional Retroactive Immunity for the corporations that illegally cooperated with the Bush Administrations pre-9/11 warrantless spying. Oftentimes, the media portray this outrage as coming solely from the far left, and suggest that there is much ado about nothing. This video of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Senator Russ Feingold explains, very clearly, exactly how much damage has just been done to the checks that rein in the power of the Executive Branch.