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.
These ideas aim to advance the detailed policy solutions needed to foster public trust and implement fairness in the adoption of AI across diverse domains, from healthcare and government benefits to rural access, education, and worker protections.
The evidence is clear: algorithmic pay-setting is established in app-based work, and payroll/timekeeping failures show how software can produce systemic wage harm at scale
While a few states have taken steps to implement decision-making mechanisms for certain AI systems, too many leaders are simply accepting narratives about AI’s purported public benefit at face value – jumping to the “how” of AI implementation before thoroughly vetting potential systems and deciding whether they are appropriate to use at all.
When properly structured — with specific numeric targets, secured financial obligations, independent monitoring, and meaningful enforcement — CBAs transform data center deals into durable community partnerships.