If you already know the case against the so-called "Protect America Act" you can skip to the Message to Congress form below.

First, President Bush broke the law. He authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to conspire with major telecom companies to monitor the phone calls and emails of American citizens without a warrant. This was a direct violation of federal law and the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.

Many people say that, "Innocent Americans have nothing to fear from illegal government surveillance, so why get upset about it?" This objection completely ignores history. Politicians have repeatedly used such surveillance to harass domestic political foes. Indeed, one of the most striking revelations of the recently released "Family Jewels" documents from the CIA, is just how common such abuses have been. All administrations have been guilty of these abuses, Democrat and Republican. And the FBI has an even more notorious history of such abuses. And the evidence of abuse just continues to mount.

It must be understood that no one objects to the NSA conducting covert surveillance in order to combat terrorism. Our objection is that the Constitution requires a warrant for any such surveillance that involves a U.S. citizen. That is all we are asking, that the Constitution be obeyed.

It was already very easy (perhaps too easy) to obtain national security surveillance warrants under the old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The evidence suggests that the existing FISA provisions were perfectly adequate to the needs of national security. President Bush, the NSA, and the implicated telecom companies, simply chose not to comply with the law.

When the NSA's illegal spying was exposed in the press President Bush's Director of National Security told Congress that the President does not have to obey the law, because he is the Commander in Chief, but that they would start complying with the law anyway.

President Bush then invoked the "state secrets privilege" in an attempt to stop proceedings against his illegal activities in court. There are three problems with this . . . 
  1. The terrorists already know we're listening to their phone calls. It's not a secret. That's why the 9/11 terrorists always spoke in code when talking on the phone. For instance, on August 29 Mohammed Atta called Binalshibh and spoke the following coded words: "A mate of mine bothered me with this puzzle and I was hoping you would help me solve it. Two sticks, a dash and a cake with a stick down. What is it?" The answer was the date for the attack: 9/11.
  2. Classified evidence can be considered by a judge out of the public eye. No true risk to real national security secrets is actually involved.
  3. The Bush administration has revealed in public things that it claimed it could not reveal in court, when doing so has seemed helpful to preserving the President's policies.

In asking Congress to legalize his warrantless spying (and grant the telecoms immunity after the fact) the President has lied to the American people. On Saturday, August 24, 2007, in his national radio address, President Bush told the country that the law he violated, FISA, had not been updated since it was first passed in 1978. This was a lie, and President Bush knew it was a lie. The Congressional Research Service shows that FISA has been updated more than 50 times, including 8 times that the President himself signed into law.

Sadly, this was only the first of many lies the administration has told about FISA and the "Protect America Act," which Congress passed in August to paper-over the NSA's illegal spying program. For instance . . .

The Bush administration has claimed that FISA needed to be updated to take account of new technology. This is a lie. FISA was specifically designed to be neutral to technological changes.

The Bush administration has claimed that the "Protect America Act" only authorizes spying on foreigners. This is another lie. Under the PAA any American communicating with a foreigner by phone or email can be spied upon without a warrant.

The Director of National Intelligence has also tried to scare the American people into supporting this violation of the Constitution, saying that "people will die" because he has had to talk about the illegal surveillance program in public. In response, it must be repeated that the terrorists already know their calls and emails are being intercepted. The only thing new here is that American citizens are also being spied upon, without warrants.

The Constitution should be obeyed. The falsely named "Protect America Act" should be repealed. Please send Congress a message. 

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