Secret Courts and Warrantless Surveillance

Secret Courts and Warrantless Surveillance
House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
September 12, 2012

Mr. Speaker:

FISA allows the government to target foreign nationals and to intercept their communications with American citizens without a warrant as required by the Fourth Amendment.

We’re told not to worry – the law requires that irrelevant information collected in this matter be disregarded. Here’s the problem: the enforcement of this provision is itself shrouded in secrecy, making the potential for abuse substantial and any remedy unlikely.

Secret courts and warrantless surveillance are not compatible with a free society, or English common law or the American Constitution.

We’re told that FISA is necessary to uncover terrorist plots and that this trumps privacy or due process concerns. Benjamin Franklin answered this argument years ago when he warned that “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

In fact, America’s security is far better assured as a thriving free society in a world that respects her strength and fears her just wrath.