Rand Paul suing White House over NSA policies

[marble falls]

104. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 .... that would be the President prior to Reagan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act

I voted for that President twice. And against Reagan. The mistake being made is partisan. There has been no good use of FISA or the NSA, ever under either party. Stop being partisan.

Under another President I voted for:

http://www.cnss.org/pages/foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act-fisa.html

FISA Applied to Secret Foreign Intelligence Physical Searches in 1994

In 1978, the Congress had refused to authorize secret warrantless searches of homes and offices. After Attorney General Reno authorized a secret search of CIA spy Aldrich Ames' home and his attorney challenged it, the Clinton administration asked Congress to extend FISA to authorize secret physical searches of Americans' homes and offices. The civil liberties community objected that such secret searches are unconstitutional, but the Justice Department argued that it was better to have such searches authorized by the FISA Court than carried out solely on the signature of the Attorney General as had occurred in the investigation of Aldrich Ames.

In the summer of 1994 the House Intelligence Committee held a hearing to consider the Administration's proposal to extend the FISA to include physical searches:

Senate Select Committee Report on The Counterintelligence and Security Enhancements Act of 1994, No. 103-296 June 30, 1994
Testimony by Kate Martin, Director of CNSS, then a project of the ACLU, before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, July 14, 1994
Testimony by Jamie S. Gorelick, Deputy Attorney General, before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, July 14, 1994
Testimony by Kenneth C. Bass, III, before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, July 14, 1994
CNSS/ACLU's memo about the proposed warrantless national security searches under FISA, August 9, 1994

During late summer 1994, Congressman Don Edwards opposed extending the FISA to authorize secret searches and Attorney General Janet Reno responded.

Letter from Congressman Don Edwards opposing the proposed FISA amendment, August 18, 1994
Letter from Attorney General Janet Reno to Congressman Edwards, September 12, 1994

Congress amended the FISA to authorize secret physical searches with the Counterintelligence and Security Enhancements Act of 1994, Public Law 103-359, Sec. 9. Afterwards, the Supreme Court ruled in a different context that the Constitution requires the government to give individuals "knock and notice" when searching their homes, as the civil liberties community had argued that it did. Wilson v. United States, 514 U.S. 927 (1995).