La puissance des USA de remarquer sur des étrangers obtient le signe d'assentiment

Par Thomas Ferraro

Le congrès Démocratique-mené des USA a rapporté au Président George Bush samedi et a temporairement augmenté la puissance du gouvernement de remarquer sur les suspects étrangers électroniquement sans ordre de cour.

Les libertés civiles que les groupes ont chargé la mesure créeraient un large filet qui balayerait vers le haut des citoyens respectueux des lois des USA. Mais la chambre des représentants a approuvé la facture par 227 voix à 183, un jour après l'approbation de sénat, par 60 voix à 28.

“After months of prodding by house republicans, congress has finally closed the terrorist loophole in our surveillance law — and America will be the safer for it,” declared house minority leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican.

With legislators to begin a month-long recess this weekend, Bush had called on them to stay until they passed the legislation.

“Protecting America is our most solemn obligation,” Bush said earlier in the day.

The measure authorises the National Security Agency to intercept communications between people in the US and foreign targets overseas.

The administration has to submit to a secret court a description of the procedures used to ensure that surveillance without a warrant only targeted people outside the US.

The court, set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa ), would review the procedures and may order changes . The administration could appeal.

Fisa now requires the government to obtain orders from its court to conduct surveillance of suspected terrorists in the US.

But after the September 11 attacks, Bush authorised warrantless interception of communications between people in the US and others overseas if one of them was suspected of terrorist ties. Critics charged that programme violated the law, but Bush argued he had wartime powers to do so.

In January, Bush put the programme under the supervision of the Fisa court, but the terms have not been made public.

Congress has subpoenaed documents in an effort to determine Bush’s legal justification for the warrantless surveillance.

The new bill was needed in part, aides said, because of restrictions recently imposed by the secret court on spy agencies’ intercepting of communications. Congress has to come up with permanent legislation within six months.

Republicans earlier rejected a Democrat alternative providing greater court supervision.

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