Dear Mr. Petersen,

Thank you so much for your email. I appreciate this opportunity to correspond with you.

Last year Congress passed the bipartisan Protect America Act that allows our intelligence community to more effectively collect foreign intelligence. President Bush signed this short-term fix into law on August 5, 2007. The provisions of this law expired in February 2008.

On June 19, 2008 Representative Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) introduced H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. H.R. 6304 was considered by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 20, 2008 and passed by a vote of 293 – 129. This bill requires the intelligence community to obtain a warrant in order to monitor communications of U.S. citizens. H.R. 6304 does not explicitly grant retroactive liability protection to telephone companies for information that they provided to the government under the administration’s previous surveillance program. Rather, it provides protections for companies in cases where they received written requests from the attorney general certifying that warrants were not required by law to collect such information and the information provided was intended to prevent terrorism. I voted in favor of this bill because it will keep Americans safe, protect their civil liberties, and prevent runaway lawsuits. Democrat leaders Speaker Pelosi, Rep. Hoyer, and many others also supported H.R. 6304, which currently awaits action in the Senate.

I do not believe it is productive to open the door to lawsuits against entities that cooperated with the federal government in good faith and believed they were acting within the law. It is also important to note that our future ability to monitor foreign targets of terrorism relies on the voluntary cooperation of these same entities with our nation’s intelligence community.

Thanks again for taking a moment to share your thoughts with me. If I may be of assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to contact my office.

Sincerely,

Patrick J. Tiberi
Representative to Congress