Help Me Spy on Al Qaeda

HELP ME SPY ON AL QAEDA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence]
[Commentary] The Protect America Act, enacted in August, has lived up to its name and objective: making the country safer while protecting the civil liberties of Americans. Under this new law, we now have the speed and agility necessary to detect terrorist and other evolving national security threats. Congress needs to act again. The Protect America Act expires in less than two months, on Feb. 1. Without the legislation experts will be diverted from tracking foreign threats to writing lengthy justifications to collect information from a person in a foreign country, simply to satisfy an outdated statute that does not reflect the ways our adversaries communicate. The intelligence community needs: 1) a law that does not require a court order for surveillance directed at a foreign intelligence target reasonably believed to be outside the United States, regardless of where the communications are found, 2) an efficient means to obtain a FISA court order to conduct surveillance in the United States for foreign intelligence purposes, and 3) liability protection for private parties that are sued only because they are believed to have assisted us after Sept. 11, 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/opinion/10mcconnell.html?ref=todayspaper
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