After weeks of pressure from President Bush, both the House and Senate approved rewriting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The new law alters the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States. The new legislation moves the power to approve the international surveillance from a special intelligence court to the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.

The legislation was rushed through both the House and Senate in the last days before the August recess began. On Friday August 3rd, the Senate passed the so-called Protect America Act of 2007 by a sixty to twenty eight vote. No Republicans voted against the bill. The following Democrats voted for it: Evan Bayh (Indiana); Tom Carper (Delaware); Bob Casey (Pennsylvania); Kent Conrad (North Dakota); Dianne Feinstein (California); Daniel Inouye (Hawai‘i); Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota); Mary Landrieu (Louisiana); Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas); Claire McCaskill (Missouri); Barbara Mikulski (Maryland); Bill Nelson (Florida); Ben Nelson (Nebraska); Mark Pryor (Arkansas); Ken Salazar (Colorado); Jim Webb (Virginia). On Saturday, 41 Democrats joined Republicans to pass the bill in the House.

The American Civil Liberties Union condemned the votes. Anthony Romero of the ACLU said "This Congress may prove to be as spineless in standing up to the Bush Administration as the one that enacted the Patriot Act or the Military Commissions Act.” Critics of the legislation say it gives the Bush administration the power to order the nation's communication services providers to create permanent spying outposts for the federal government.

Kagro X writes on Daily Kos:

There's something deeper and even more troubling going on here. What's happening here is the ceding of the last remaining prerogatives of the legislative branch to the executive. We are currently watching the Congress cede its oversight authority -- not its ability to hold hearings, but its ability to make hearings mean something. We may be watching the Congress cede its "power of the purse," as George W. Bush now threatens to veto any appropriations bill that does not match the numbers in his budget. (You need to know that the president's budget has almost never been the working model for Congress. The traditional reaction to the president's budget, no matter whose it is or even who's reacting, has been that it's "dead on arrival.") Now we are watching the Congress cede even its legislative powers, reacting to Bush's threat to keep them in session until they pass the exact FISA legislation he demands.

Democracy Now! Coverage | EFF: Congress Passes NSA Spying Bill | Congress authorizes vast expansion of domestic spying | ACLU Condemns Senate for Passing Spy Law Changes | Senate Gives in on Wiretapping. 16 Dems Go Along | HuffPost: The Real Deal on Wiretapping Expansion | Europeans Alarmed by US Spy Powers

ACLU: Myths and Facts About FISA | Wikipedia: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act | FAS: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act