Can I Have A Peek At Your E-mail?

That's what the government is asking to "protect us." My question: why not just enforce our current immigration laws - which would keep terrorists out - rather than infringe on the rights of law-abiding Americans? because that's what they're doing. I have it on good authority that the government is taping our telephone conversations already (have been since - at least - the 1970s)... guess that enforcing already-present laws doesn't get the huge telecom corporations any more of our tax dollars that were supposed to be used to "protect" us. Ha.

Cheney prods Senate to extend surveillance law
Republicans block stopgap extension, instead seek immunity for telecomms

updated 7:49 p.m. PT, Wed., Jan. 23, 2008
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney prodded Congress on Wednesday to extend and broaden an expiring surveillance law, saying "fighting the war on terror is a long-term enterprise" that should not come with an expiration date.

"We're reminding Congress that they must act now," Cheney told the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The law, which authorizes the administration to eavesdrop on e-mails and phone calls to and from suspected terrorists, expires on Feb. 1. Congress is bickering over terms of its extension.

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Seeking immunity for telecomms
Administration allies in Congress not only want the expiring law made permanent but amended to give telephone companies and other communications providers immunity from being sued for helping the government eavesdropping and other intelligence-gathering efforts.

Cheney said such providers "face dozens of lawsuits."

"The intelligence community doesn't have the facilities to carry out the kind of international surveillance needed to defend this country since 9-11. In some situations, there is no alternative to seeking assistance from the private sector. This is entirely appropriate," Cheney said.

At the White House, press secretary Dana Perino defended the proposal to protect phone companies from liability. "These are companies who helped their country right after 9-11," she said. [...]

Lawmakers may work overtime on measure
At the heart of the controversy is whether the government's wireless surveillance program violated provisions of the original FISA law that requires warrants for wiretaps whenever one of the parties involved in the communication resides in the United States.

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The original FISA law requires the government to get permission from a special court to listen in on the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States. Changes in communications technology mean many purely foreign to foreign communications now pass through the United States and therefore require the government to get court orders to intercept them.

The Protect America Act, adopted in August, eased that restriction. Privacy and civil liberties advocates say it went too far, giving the government far more power to eavesdrop on American communications without court oversight.