Proposed FISA Changes No Help To President

John M. "Mike" McConnell released some meaningless changes to FISA which do not help the President, even if retroactively applied.

Ref The Proposed FISA changes, even if implemented, would not have legalized what the President has done.

This analysis shows there remain many questions which the Congress needs better information.

The proposed changes sound like efforts to incorporate NSL-related abuses and illegal activity the DOJ IG identified.

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1. US Nationals were monitored without approval of FISA;

2. Even if standards of proof were revised, the President has been ignoring them.

3. Even if warrants were extended from 120 to one year, Gonzalez still ignored the FISA court;

4. Whether phone companies have civil immunity for violations i meaningless when those data captures are used to support prisoner abuses and war crimes.

5. Even if emergency warrants were extended from 72 hours to one week, Gonzalez ignored the FISA court and did not get extensions well after many months.

6. Even if the above changes were available, it's not clear why the White House was conducting illegal activity prior to Sept 2001.