Hoekstra has plan for NSA, FISA rewrite

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060302-061329-8011r

Hoekstra has plan for NSA, FISA rewrite

WASHINGTON, March 2 (UPI) -- The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Thursday agreed to a program of oversight for the National Security Agency's program of warrantless counter-terrorist surveillance, saying a small group of members, perhaps an existing subcommittee, would be briefed on the controversial wiretapping effort.

The committee also agreed to launch an inquiry into the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, the law governing the use of wiretapping and other forms of electronic surveillance for national security purposes inside the United States, with an eye to reforming it.

"We will work with the White House to have the members ... fully briefed on the NSA program to expand and increase oversight of this critical terrorism prevention tool," said committee Chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.

The agreement is the latest step in the complicated, slow-motion foxtrot being danced between the executive and legislative branches of government about the program -- under which phone calls and other electronic communications into or out of the United States can be monitored without a warrant if one of the participants is thought to be a member of al-Qaida or an affiliated terror group.