Concern Over Wider Spying Under New Law
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU The New York Times August 19, 2007
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 - Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include - without court approval - certain types of physical searches of American citizens and the collection of their business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.
Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.
They also emphasized that there would be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance.
The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought. It also offers a case study in how changing a few words in a complex piece of legislation has the potential to fundamentally alter the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a landmark national security law. Two weeks after the legislation was signed into law, there is still heated debate over how much power Congress gave to the president.
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