This report was prepared and published prior to the Senate passing of FISA.

CRS Report RL34566, July 7, 2008.

From the report’s summary:

The current legislative and oversight activity with respect to electronic
surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has drawn
national attention to several overarching issues. This report briefly outlines three
such issues and touches upon some of the perspectives reflected in the ongoing
debate. These issues include the inherent and often dynamic tension between national
security and civil liberties, particularly rights of privacy and free speech; the need for
the intelligence community to be able to efficiently and effectively collect foreign
intelligence information from the communications of foreign persons located outside
the United States in a changing, fast-paced, and technologically sophisticated
international environment or from United States persons abroad, and the differing
approaches suggested to meet this need; and limitations of liability for those
electronic communication service providers who furnish aid to the federal
government in its foreign intelligence collection. Two constitutional provisions, in
particular, are implicated in this debate — the Fourth and First Amendments. This
report briefly examines these issues and sets them in context.

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