American intelligence operations are being held hostage by House Democrats and a secret ruling issued by an unknown federal judge.(The Week)(Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)(Brief article)

American intelligence operations are being held hostage by House Democrats and a secret ruling issued by an unknown federal judge. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, adopted by a Democratic Congress in the wake of Watergate, is intended to give Americans at home due-process protection from national-security surveillance. But modern technology means that many communications--say, an e-mail from Kandahar to Fallujah--pass through U.S.-based infrastructure. The FISA court issued a classified ruling that all intercepts must be treated the same way as phone taps involving U.S. citizens. Last year Congress mitigated the impact of this eccentric decision by ...