Congress originally passed FISA to provide the exclusive authority for the wiretapping of people in the United States in foreign intelligence investigations to protect national security. As the Senate Report noted, FISA "was designed . . . to curb the practice by which the Executive Branch may conduct warrantless electronic surveillance on its own unilateral determination that national security justifies it."

Passage of this amendment makes clear that the House will not capitulate to separate legislative proposals by the Administration that would give the NSA the freedom to snoop into innocent Americans lives.

As for what Bush is trying to do:

While the Administration claims that its proposed FISA changes would "modernize" the law, in truth they would gut the judicial oversight mechanisms carefully crafted to prevent abuse, while expanding the scope of communications that can be intercepted under FISA. The ACLU noted that, despite many recent hearings about "modernization" and "technology neutrality," the administration has not publicly provided Congress with a single example of how current FISA standards have either prevented the intelligence community from using new technologies, or proven unworkable for the agents tasked with following them.

The ACLU has high praise for Congressman Schiff and Blake. Now the Senate needs to follow suit and not let the Administration "eviscerate" FISA.