CRS Report of the Week: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: A Sketch of Selected Issues - Via CDT - PolicyBeta:

This report was prepared and published prior to the Senate passing of FISA.

CRS Report RL34566, July 7, 2008.

From the report’s summary:

The current legislative and oversight activity with respect to electronicsurveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has drawnnational attention to several overarching issues. This report briefly outlines threesuch issues and touches upon some of the perspectives reflected in the ongoingdebate. These issues include the inherent and often dynamic tension between nationalsecurity and civil liberties, particularly rights of privacy and free speech; the need forthe intelligence community to be able to efficiently and effectively collect foreignintelligence information from the communications of foreign persons located outsidethe United States in a changing, fast-paced, and technologically sophisticatedinternational environment or from United States persons abroad, and the differingapproaches suggested to meet this need; and limitations of liability for thoseelectronic communication service providers who furnish aid to the federalgovernment in its foreign intelligence collection. Two constitutional provisions, inparticular, are implicated in this debate — the Fourth and First Amendments. Thisreport briefly examines these issues and sets them in context.

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