In a Way, FISA and Domestic Wiretaps are Bringing the Terror to The People Instead.

Terrorists are not easy to capture. Those that carried out the attacks on September 11, 2001, are proof of that. 

The various law enforcement agencies throughout this nation are some of the best in the world and definitely the best equipped, and yet they still were not even close to sniffing out this deadly attack and stopping it. 

Something was needed; something more than what the government already had as a tool to use in the fight. 

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 is the springboard which the government uses to guide its surveillance efforts of potential foreign dangers to our nation. 

Domestic wiretaps are supposed to be used in order to make the people of the nation more secure and actually safe. 

With the powers of FISA and domestic wiretaps in hand, the government hoped to be able to put a stop to acts like those carried out on 9/11. 

However, the terrorists figured out the loophole to their FISA and domestic wiretaps problem. 

The act made it legal for the U.S. government to have surveillance on foreign powers and/or operatives that it believed may be intent on causing the U.S. and its citizens harm for up to a year without a court order. 

That is, unless a citizen of the U.S. was involved. 

The government then had to get a court order within seventy two hours after the surveillance was conducted. 

So if the terrorists were in the country for a few years, long enough to become citizens, then the powers of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and domestic wiretaps are pretty much non-existent. 

Oversights such as this may or may not have contributed to the terrorists getting away with their work on that September day. 

That could not be allowed to happen again.

Warrantless Wiretaps

Not happy with the powers inherent in FISA, Bush deemed it necessary to command a program of wiretapping as a terrorist surveillance program. 

Claiming that executive order was all that was needed he ordered that the wiretaps be carried out without bothering to get warrants. 

It is unclear whether this started before or after 9/11. 

Laws after 9/11 loosened restrictions on wiretaps which make it seem illogical to think Bush would have ordered the warrantless wiretaps after 9/11. 

Gonzalez Tries to Rationalize

After the warrantless program become public knowledge, Attorney General Gonzalez tried to defend the program claiming that it was only carried out when the government had reason to believe that someone involved in the conversation/communication was tied to Al Qaeda somehow. 

This logic does not really stand up too well. FISA and domestic wiretaps are somewhat regulated.

Yet the passage of the Patriot Act and other legislation in post 9/11 America made it so easy to get a warrant (since the name of the suspect was not even necessary).