What+the+FISA+Act+says

= What the FISA Act says. =

The Fisa Act gives provisions and restrictions on foreign communication. It gives ways to monitor and observe any communication between the United States and outside countries.

The biggest change in the new Amendment is that individual intelligence surveillance warrants no longer need to be approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. Decisions are now made about foreign surveillance are made by the Court and administration make more specific decisions about warrants.

It gives American Citizens privacy when communicating through telephone and internet conversations as court approval is needed in order to have the ability to eavesdrop. The act also prohibits the Government from keeping records of communication for longer than a period of 10 years.

The FISA Act allows telecommunication companies to receive protection from law suits as they are not required to disclose details about their conversations.

The Act increases the time allowed for surveillance without a warrant from 2 days to 7 days.

The Act does allow eavesdropping in emergencies without court approval - only if the government files a notification of this within one week.

The positive aspects of the new Act are that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court will not be overwhelmed by surveillance requests as the decisions are alot more spread out among the Court and administration. The Act also turns the Bush administration's illegal spying program into a legal system.