The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy concerns surveillance of persons within the United States incident to the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the war on terror. Under this program, referred to by the Bush administration as the ""terrorist surveillance program"", the NSA is authorized by executive order to monitor phone calls and other communication originating from parties outside the U.S. with known or suspected links to al Qaeda, even if the terminus of that communication lies within the U.S.

Shortly before passing a new law in August of 2007 that legalized warrantless surveillance, critics in the Democratic Party contended that such ""domestic"" intercepts require authorization from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), while the Bush administration maintains that the authorized intercepts are not domestic but rather ""foreign intelligence"" integral to the conduct of war and that the warrant requirements of FISA were implicitly superseded by the subsequent passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).

see more on Wikipedia

Please, Login or Register to leave a comment.