TRI In The News

Legal Group Fights NSA Spying

From OneNewsNow
Original article available here.

A federal court plans to take a close look at a law that permits spying on Americans. The problem surfaced in a bill passed in 2008, says John Whitehead, who founded and heads The Rutherford Institute.

"Congress passed an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Security Act which gave the National Security Agency virtually limitless power to spy on Americans' international phone calls and e-mails," says Whitehead.

For the most part, there is no oversight from Congress and no information on how much they spend for the effort or how it is spent. Among the federal resources is a computer system specifically designed to examine e-mails and phone calls to foreign countries. A federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed against the law, but an appeals court has reinstated it.

Whitehead acknowledges that the Constitution does allow for surveillance -- provided there is good reason to do so.

"The government should not be snooping, listening to our phone calls or our e-mails unless, as the 4th Amendment requires, there's 'probable cause' to do so," states the Rutherford founder. "Probable cause means that there is evidence suggesting whatever American citizen they're listening to is involved in some kind of criminal activity."

Whitehead says his investigation revealed no laws being violated by those who were being spied upon. He will ask the federal court to rule the law unconstitutional.