On the recordOctober 16, 2007
Mr. Speaker, before the August break we fixed a problem. It was a problem that grew worse over the course of this year in that we were increasingly hampered in our ability to prevent another terrorist attack on this country because of the change in telecommunications and a law that was woefully outdated. It's called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It was put in place in 1978 to protect the civil liberties of Americans. Think about it. 1978 was the year that I graduated from high school. The telephone hung on the wall in the kitchen. Cell phones had not been invented. The word 'Internet' did not even exist. Technology has changed since 1978, and the law had not kept pace. In 1978, almost all long-haul communications went over the air. Almost all international communications went over the air, and they were explicitly exempted from the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Source
govinfo.gov
