Russ Feingold: “the reverse targeting amendment No. 3913 was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee and is cosponsored by several of…”

“the reverse targeting amendment No. 3913 was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee and is cosponsored by several of my colleagues. It simply ensures that the new authorities contained in this bill are not used to engage in what is known as reverse targeting of Americans here at home. FISA requires the Government to get a court order when it is wiretapping Americans on American soil. Reverse targeting refers to the possibility that the Government will try to get around this requirement by using these new authorities to wiretap someone overseas, when what the Government is trying to do and is interested in is the American with whom that foreign person is communicating. The bill pretends to ban reverse targeting, but this ban is so weak as to be meaningless. It would allow reverse targeting as long as the Government can claim it has some interest, however minor, in the foreigner it is wiretapping. The amendment says the Government needs an individualized court order when a significant purpose of the surveillance is to acquire communications of a person inside the United States. The Director of National Intelligence has testified that this practice, reverse targeting, is a violation of the fourth amendment. That is what the DNI says. This amendment merely codifies that constitutional principle. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this important amendment.”