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Fact Sheet: Senate Must Act Quickly on Bipartisan Foreign Intelligence
Legislation to Ensure That Our Intelligence Professionals Can Better
Protect America From Terrorists
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary July 3, 2008

Fact Sheet: Senate Must Act Quickly on Bipartisan Foreign Intelligence
Legislation to Ensure That Our Intelligence Professionals Can Better
Protect America From Terrorists

ÿÿWhite House News


Last week, Congress once again left town without providing our intelligence
professionals the tools they need to keep our Nation safe. President Bush
strongly supports Congress' efforts to make necessary updates to the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The House passed a strong
bipartisan bill, and the Senate needs to act as soon as it returns from its
recess.

This Bipartisan House Legislation:
  þ Provides our intelligence professionals the tools they need to quickly
    and effectively monitor the plans of terrorists abroad.As terrorists
    change their tactics to avoid our surveillance, the Intelligence
    Community may not have the tools needed to continue tracking them _ and
    may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America. This
    bill ensures that our Intelligence Community has the ability to quickly
    learn who the terrorists are talking to, what they're saying, and what
    they're planning.
  þ Preserves the strong protections for the liberties of Americans.The
    bipartisan House legislation leaves unchanged the strong protections
    FISA provides to Americans in the United States and extends protections
    to Americans overseas, requiring a court order to target Americans for
    surveillance no matter where they are. It also requires court review of
    the procedures used to protect information about Americans.
  þ Provides critical liability protection for companies whose assistance
    we need to protect the Nation from another catastrophic attack. We need
    to be able to monitor communications of terrorists quickly and
    effectively, and we cannot do this without the cooperation of private
    companies. The Senate Intelligence Committee already determined that
    any telecommunications companies that assisted the Government after
    9/11 did so in good faith.

This Bipartisan House Bill Does Not:
  þ Undermine private-sector telecommunications companies' willingness to
    provide essential help to our Intelligence Community. The assistance of
    private-sector telecommunications companies is vital to protecting the
    Nation from attack. Most of the communications infrastructure the
    Intelligence Community relies on is owned and operated by the private
    sector, meaning private-sector assistance is essential to gaining
    intelligence on the plans of those who wish to attack us.
  þ Risk the disclosure of highly sensitive classified information
    concerning intelligence sources and methods by allowing lawsuits to
    proceed.Such litigation likely would lead to the disclosure of highly
    sensitive national security information and would be contrary to the
    well established state secrets privilege doctrine, which protects
    classified information from disclosure in civil suits.
  þ Infringe the liberties of Americans.The bipartisan and carefully
    constructed House bill gives the Intelligence Community the tools it
    needs to protect the Nation from foreign terrorists without
    compromising the liberties of Americans.

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