DNI Urges Update of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
According to the Director of National Intelligence, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, the law that regulates domestic intelligence surveillance, desperately needs to be updated to accommodate the latest technologies.
“Technology and threats have changed, but the law remains essentially the same,” wrote DNI Mike McConnell in a Washington Post op-ed on May 21. “The failure to update this law comes at an increasingly steep price.”
But contrary to Director McConnell’s surprising claim, FISA has been repeatedly and substantively modified and updated over the years.
“Abiding by FISA does not mean clinging to [an obsolete] 1978 structure,” said Rep. Jane Harman, then-ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, last summer. “FISA has been modernized.”
“Each time the Administration has come to Congress and asked to modernize FISA, Congress has said ‘yes’,” she recalled (pdf).
The Congressional Research Service tabulated dozens of legislative changes (pdf) that were made to the FISA between 1994 and 2006.
Glenn Greenwald elaborated on some of the changes made to FISA in a vigorous rebuttal to the DNI’s op-ed. See “The administration’s FISA falsehoods continue unabated,” Salon, May 21.
The current wildfire management system is inadequate in the face of increasingly severe and damaging wildfires. Change is urgently needed
While it seems that the current political climate may not incentivize the use of evidence-based data sources for decision making, those of us who are passionate about ensuring results for the American people will continue to firmly stand on the belief that learning agendas are a crucial component to successfully navigate a changing future.
In recent months, we’ve seen much of these decades’ worth of progress erased. Contracts for evaluations of government programs were canceled, FFRDCs have been forced to lay off staff, and federal advisory committees have been disbanded.
This report outlines a framework relying on “Cooperative Technical Means” for effective arms control verification based on remote sensing, avoiding on-site inspections but maintaining a level of transparency that allows for immediate detection of changes in nuclear posture or a significant build-up above agreed limits.