FISA Finagling

Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn't like the fact that Congress overwhelmingly passed President Bush's FISA revision, so she's gone out of her way to instruct the House Intel Chairs to introduce legislation that would amend and gut the just passed and signed legislation. From Speaker Pelosi's newsroom:

Pelosi Requests Conyers and Reyes Offer Legislation to Amend FISA ‘As Soon as Possible’

"Many provisions of this legislation are unacceptable, and, although the bill has a six month sunset clause, I do not believe the American people will want to wait that long before corrective action is taken."
08/04/2007

The law went beyond simply amending certain provisions of FISA, and expands the government's ability to listen in on communications entering or leaving the US.

President Bush signed the legislation into law yesterday. It has a six-month sunset provision, which means that Congress will be able to take up any changes prior to that time and would provide the ability to see whether the provisions work as intended. Pelosi isn't about to wait that long. She'd rather gut and limit the ability to detect terrorist communiques than to see whether such efforts actually work.

The text of the legislation in question is here.