" (Broad U.S. Wiretap Powers Upheld) John Ashcroft has also recently announced his newest ideas on national security. These plans include the designation of special intelligence prosecutors in every federal court district, and the creation of a new FBI unit to seek intelligence warrants. (Broad U.S. Wiretap Powers Upheld) According to Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the decision "Should untie the government's hands and help prevent terrorist attacks." (Broad U.S. Wiretap Powers Upheld).
Many people believe that the new wiretap laws are necessary for the protection of the American homeland in the upcoming war on Iraq. Intelligence officials fear that a war with Iraq will anger terrorist groups who have ties to Saddam Hussein, and that this may provoke future terrorist attacks. The new surveillance laws make very clear what investigators can and can't do. It seems government lawyers have been misinterpreting the surveillance laws for several years now. Misunderstanding of the law has led to a failure to seek surveillance warrants in multiple cases. Zacarias Moussaoui was detained several weeks before the September eleventh attack, but he was not surveilled or detained to the fullest extent. He is now believed to have been involved in the attack. Now the law is very straight forward, and the lawyers will have very little trouble procuring a warrant that allows them to spy on the suspected terrorist. The Bush administration states that although the act does give the government more freedom to spy on the citizens of the United States, it does not grant them the authority to spy on a larger category of suspects. They are stressing that the ruling only "Simplifies the process for running such investigations by avoiding the need to halt an intelligence probe once investigators observe evidence of a crime by the suspected terrorist." (Broad U.S. Wiretap Powers Upheld).
Opponents to the new act believe that the ruling by the secretive appeals court is unconstitutional, because it gives the government the power to aggressively spy on citizens of the country.
