Supreme Court: ‘Troubled’ with Warrantless Wiretapping Program
The Obama administration and the American Civil Liberties Union butted heads inside the walls of the Supreme Court on Monday as both sides presented arguments regarding the warrantless wiretapping of US citizens.
The top justices in the country listened to testimonies this week in the case of Clapper v. Amnesty International, but an eventual ruling from the Supreme Court in the matter won’t necessarily mean that the National Security Agency will have to stop spying on Americans anytime soon.
Under the 2008 amendments made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, the NSA is allowed to eavesdrop on any communications sent to a person suspected to be outside the United States without requiring a warrant. But while the provisions were put in place allegedly to aid in capturing any foreign intelligence for national security purposes, the law at the same time allows the agency to listen in and watch any activity sent from an American to a person abroad without giving an explanation why or ever alerting them.
“Under the FAA, the government can target anyone — human rights researchers, academics, attorneys, political activists, journalists — simply because they are foreigners outside the United States, and in the course of its surveillance it can collect Americans’ communications with those individuals,” the ACLU alleges in their initial legal brief.
The ACLU says that the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA) should be…
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