"It’s Just Unjust"
To the Editor:
I read, with great interest, David King’s article “A Time to Fight” [Newsfrront, July 3].
As a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in New York’s 21st Congressional District, I wanted to add my voice to the concerns regarding recent action taken in the Congress to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
I do not support retroactive immunity for any industry that violates the law and I do not support secret courts. Judicial power may be abused like any other.
However, the immunity provisions are not the worst aspect of the FISA revisions. There are two major problems with the new law. First, the new FISA revisions extend the time under which the NSA may conduct a wiretap from 72 hours to a week. No need has been demonstrated to increase this time period. Second, the bill gives wholesale approval to bulk monitoring of electronic communications (primarily email and phone calls). This monitoring is based on software algorithms of dubious validity that determine whether or not a person’s behavior patterns suggest that he or she is acting in a way that merits eavesdropping.
This concept, which is really a form of profiling, flies in the face of our longstanding mandates of probable cause and reasonable suspicion that require attention to individual circumstances. As a civil rights attorney, I am aware of no conceivable constitutional basis for this type of surveillance.
The recent revisions to FISA are an example of why I strongly believe that we need members of Congress who will not only challenge a Republican president, but who are also willing to stand up to members of our own party’s leadership when they are wrong.
Phil Steck
Democratic candidate for Congress
New York’s 21st Congressional District
Colonie
