Susan Goering: Keeping an eye on those who keep an eye on us

First, they want to give ‘‘get out of jail free” cards to telecom companies that broke the intelligence collection law (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA) when they handed over the phone calls, e-mails and private records of Americans to the government without a warrant. Telecom immunity will wipe out a series of pending lawsuits, and citizens who believe their most fundamental rights were violated will never get their day in court. That makes a mockery of the rule of law.

Marylanders and other Americans strongly oppose letting telecoms off the hook and it’s time to let our elected officials know that.

Second, intelligence committee members — including Senator Mikulski — seem prepared to support a ‘‘reform” bill that authorizes ‘‘basket” warrants, which aren’t really warrants at all. Rather, they are blank checks to sweep up, and keep forever, the private phone calls and e-mails between Americans and anyone outside the United States. This past week, Senator Mikulski, though a long-time supporter of civil liberties, voted for an intelligence committee bill that contained these provisions.

The stakes are high in the House of Representatives as well, where President Bush is creating a fog of fear around spying, and bit-by-bit the House has caved to his demands.

Under the leadership of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, some House Democrats have been pushing the so-called Restore Act (H.R. 3773) that gives the government permission to spy on Americans without an individual warrant (‘‘basket warrants”), in violation of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. So far, the House has refused to cave on telecom immunity, but it’s not off the table and could resurface at any time, especially if it shows up in the Senate bill.

In August, amid vague threats of imminent terrorist attack, the Bush administration steamrolled the Democratic-led Congress into passing the ‘‘Protect America Act,” which actually expanded certain provisions of the post-9⁄11 USA Patriot Act by allowing more warrantless searches on Americans. In reaction to a massive outcry from some Marylanders and other Americans who thought they had voted for people who would contain the Bush administration’s excesses, Democratic leaders promised to include real civil liberties protections when they fixed the PAA this fall. Now it’s time to hold them accountable.

Maryland, home of the National Security Agency, has every reason to uphold a long tradition of justifiable and constitutional surveillance. We should demand that any FISA reform bills require individualized warrants for Americans. And we should oppose granting telecom companies retroactive immunity for illegal spying and violations of our privacy.

If President Bush really has good reason to believe an American is talking to a terrorist, he will have no problem convincing a judge to issue a warrant.

Susan Goering of Baltimore is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.