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Lawmakers are facing political fallout this week after voting to give the Bush administration new spying powers while making changes in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Perhaps trying to mitigate criticism from privacy and civil liberties groups, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Tuesday released a letter from National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell outlining what protections will be used when the administration spies on U.S. citizens. That legislation allows McConnell and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to authorize the surveillance of communications by U.S. citizens without first getting a warrant from the secret FISA court.

The authorization could last for up to one year. In McConnell's letter, which Feinstein said she requested, the director said the intelligence community is still obligated to minimize the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of information concerning U.S. citizens.

"These procedures have worked well for decades and eliminate from intelligence reports incidentally acquired information concerning U.S. persons that does not constitute foreign intelligence," wrote McConnell, a retired vice admiral who ran the National Security Agency from 1992-1996. He said the government also has "extensive training, compliance, and other procedures in place at agencies to ensure our activities are conducted according to law," including audits from inspectors general.

The new law also requires the government to submit its procedures for spying to the secret FISA court for judicial review, McConnell added.

"I am committed to keeping the Congress fully and currently informed of how this act has improved the ability of the intelligence community to protect the country and reporting -- and remedying -- any incidents of non-compliance," he wrote.

And, although McConnell did not say it, the new law expires in six months. Feinstein said she is working to draft "permanent legislation to ensure the effectiveness of our foreign intelligence surveillance program and to ensure that it protects the rights and liberties of all Americans."

Meanwhile, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Monday asked the Justice Department to investigate whether House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, violated the law by leaking classified information about intelligence operations related to FISA.

The group cited a July 31 interview Boehner gave to Fox News, in which he said a court ruling "prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States."

CREW alleges that Boehner appears to have transmitted information relating to national defense. A Boehner spokesman disputed that Boehner leaked anything and said his comments were consistent with what the administration, intelligence officials, and news reports have been conveying since January.

"Mr. Boehner was referring to a FISA court judge's orders in January -- outlined in a publicly available letter from the attorney general to the Congress -- which brought all surveillance operations under the already-outdated and over-burdened FISA system and caused the intelligence gap Republicans fought to close last week," he said.

COMMENTS

• Once more, my thanks go out to GovExec and Mr. Strohm for an explanation that eluded me. I understand the newly invested majority party must work under an opposition President with veto power. I understand those freshmen congressional members are loath to make mistakes that could cost American lives; and appreciate their cautious considered attempts to unravel the debacle that has been 6 years in the making. But amid investigations into the DOJ AG’s flip flops on illegal surveillance programs, secret prisons, and reconsideration of the Patriot Act excesses; I find they’ve given the cat the key to the bird cage. It simply made no sense to me. The sole redeeming feature of this travesty is that “the new law expires in six months”. Despite the necessity, I abhor hasty decisions later regretted and pray the next round will go with American values and ideals. Most history students will remember these same philosophical battles from WWII when we interned approximately 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans in War Relocation Centers and exclusion zones, took their properties, and put the pieces of their lives and livelihoods up on the auction block. The racism was a conflagration and wholly systemic; in 1944 the Supreme Court even upheld the constitutionality of the exclusions, removals, and detentions, arguing that it is permissible to curtail the civil rights of a racial group when there is a "pressing public necessity." It took our Japanese American brethren in the 442nd Regimental Combat team 18,143 decorations for valor, including 9,486 Purple Hearts becoming the most decorated unit in US military history, to convince the rest of us that they were just as worthy of being called Americans as we were. And it all ended with President Reagan signing legislation which apologized for the internment, on behalf of the U.S. government, in 1988. The point is that fear made us do un-American things; things we came to regret. And loud noises will run cattle off cliffs. Let’s not stampede ourselves into a rigid, Big Brother society where opinions are homogenized and dissent is rebuked. We all need to hear the opposition’s objections. Let the truth out. Let us continue with our American freedoms. Yes, we must never fail to fight for safety and security; but freedom is twice as expensive when sold from within. Tip off Posted August 9, 2007 12:46 PM
• The democrat representatives you voted for are weak in more than just their will. Their positions regarding the enemies we are trying to defend against are both foreign and domestic, some amateurs and some pro. If Reid and Pelosi and Kennedy and Murtha and Obama and Clinton succeed in their march to the rear, my daughter and her peers will be suffering under sharia law and dhimmitude, bowing to Ahmadidijad's new caliphate. May God have mercy on us if conservatives and traditionalists don't take back the leadership of our government in 2008. anonymous Posted August 9, 2007 7:50 AM
• Where is the evidence that the Government has been illegally spying on regular American citizens? All I hear is talk by blowhard Democrats, and civil liberties groups who pick and choose what they consider violations. If some terrorist calls me, I think I'd like the Government to be listening in. Bill O'Reilly said if anyone came forward and showed him that they had been spied on illegally by the Government and that their liberties had been violated, he'd put them on the air. After 4 years, not one person has come forward. We have a bunch of Chicken Littles waging a ridiculous fight, and if succesful, will leave us more open to attack. Berserker Posted August 8, 2007 3:04 PM