Senate Poised To Renew Warrantless Spying Without Debate

Attempting to sneak it in under the radar

The Senate is about to vote on an extension of the controversial FISA Amendments Act—the unconstitutional law that allows the NSA to warrantless spy on Americans speaking to people abroad. Yet you wouldn't know it by watching CSPAN because the Senate isn't debating it.

When Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act in 2008, despite deep privacy concerns by Americans across the political spectrum, they included an expiration date of December 31, 2012 to ensure that the law would get a thorough review. Yet Senate leaders have so far refused to schedule any time on the Senate floor for debate or consideration of vital privacy-protecting amendments. Worse, they won't even tell the American public when they're going to vote on it. It's possible they may vote on this bill—with no privacy protective changes—without any debate at all, and we won't know until it's happening.