The Hill generally does a great job of covering the Hill, but this story needed some fact-checking:
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will be brought to the House floor on Friday, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) office said.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was brought to the House floor 30 years ago. What’s being brought to the floor tomorrow is an amendment to FISA that is likely to significantly weaken the system of judicial scrutiny established in that law.
This isn’t just nitpicking. Back in February, the president and his allies did their best to create the impression that FISA itself was expiring, and that the NSA would no longer have the authority to spy on terrorists. This was nonsense. FISA isn’t set to expire ever, and on top of that the president has all the authority granted by the FISA provisions of the Patriot Act. Writing that Congress is bringing “FISA” to the floor re-enforces this misleading narrative.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.