We could celebrate the new year by tearing the fiber optic cables that send copies of all our e-mails to the National Security Agency. Instead, Congress is planning to ring in 2013 by re-authorize the parts of the Act, the controversial bill 08, which allows Americans talking to people overseas to be monitored without warrant FISA Amendments. 
The House of Representatives has already passed a five-year extension on reforms without law. Now the Senate has only a few days to consider the matter, and our contacts in DC say that the Senate is considering reauthorizing on the bill for 5 years without significant changes to protect privacy or to increase transparency, many least allow senators to debate its merits.
FISA amendments to the Act allows the NSA mandate without access to Americans communicating with a "target" abroad as long as the conversation turns to "foreign intelligence information" a broad term that can mean virtually nothing. And unlike regular mandates, FISA orders of the amendments Act can target entire groups of people, so an order could potentially affect thousands of Americans and require no probable cause that a crime has been committed .
Many believe that the government uses this law to justify the reception of a fire hose of information on how Americans use the Internet. Whistleblower evidence (PDF) provided by AT & T technician Mark Klein and former NSA employee William Binney show that the NSA has installed equipment in AT & T facilities, creating a copy of all Internet traffic flowing through the system, including our national and international emails and data web browsing and sending the data to the government.
This is exactly the type of government spying on our private lives that the authors of the Constitution prohibits when they wrote the Fourth Amendment that we should be "safe in our papers."
in October, President Obama appeared on The Daily Show where John Stewart asked about the warrantless Bush-era surveillance program (which had deeply criticized Obama as candidate in 08). Instead of promising a significant reform, Obama vaguely said the program was "changed" and had "built a structure and legal safeguards in place that were not there before on a range of issues."
We're not sure what "issues" the president speaks, but one thing has not seen any public reform :. warrantless wiretapping of our Internet communications
the nation was shocked when revelations about widespread surveillance of the NSA program were first uncovered there over 5 years, including President Bush's admission that it violated surveillance law by spying selected Americans without warrants. EFF has collected and submitted evidence that the real spy was much broader, including millions of innocent Americans. The proof of the EFF includes testimony from three former whistleblower NSA employees, as well as drawings and photographs of the interior of AT & T facilities San Francisco where millions of communications of Americans are copied to the government and three former whistleblower NSA employees.
Rather than dismantle this illegal program, Congress gave at least part of it a sheen of legality passing the FISA Amendments Act in 08.
Fortunately a group of senators from both parties, including Ron Wyden, Rand Paul and Mike Lee placed a hold on the bill. They ask the debate and the time to consider amendments that would increase the protection of privacy and add transparency requirements. They ask the government to answer questions about the scope of internal espionage matters of the Ministry of Justice refuses to answer. Senator Wyden intends to do its best to block the FISA Act reauthorization changes until there is a real debate, an honest account of how the government uses surveillance powers, and reform significant. EFF and other civil libertarian groups join with Senator Wyden calling for sunlight and reform around FISA.
Please use our action center to contact your member of Congress and urge them to oppose a rubber-stamp FISA Amendments Act.
And please tweeter also a message to Senator leadership to ensure they rush a vote on this issue, without even time for a constructive debate.
Hey @McConnellPress and @SenatorReid: not to push through an extension of 5 years on FISA before the end of the year. https://eff.org/r.2asn
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