Monitoring Email

MONITORING EMAIL....The Protect America Act, which revises the FISA law, is partly designed to ensure that communications entirely outside the U.S. that happen to pass through a U.S. switch can be monitored without a warrant. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that this is fine. But the Washington Post reports today that assistant attorney general for national security Kenneth Wainstein put a slightly different spin on this at an ABA breakfast on Monday:

At the breakfast yesterday, Wainstein highlighted a different problem with the current FISA law than other administration officials have emphasized....In response to a question at the meeting by David Kris, a former federal prosecutor and a FISA expert, Wainstein said FISA's current strictures did not cover strictly foreign wire and radio communications, even if acquired in the United States. The real concern, he said, is primarily e-mail, because "essentially you don't know where the recipient is going to be" and so you would not know in advance whether the communication is entirely outside the United States.