Click to enlarge

As the 109th Congress enters the twilight of its years, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has made a last-minute attempt at giving the Bush administration what he calls the necessary "resources" for carrying out its phone call and internet surveillance within the law. Critics remain unconvinced.

The 11-page bill (pdf), titled the "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Oversight and Resource Enhancement Act of 2006," has inevitably attracted critical attention from the American Civil Liberties Union and from Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who earlier cosponsored what civil liberties groups viewed as a more stringent bill with Specter.

"I am really unsure why passage of this bill now would achieve anything," Senator Feinstein said in her own Senate floor remarks. The bill proposes a number of changes to existing law that some find troubling.

One section, for instance, would require the U.S. attorney general to "fully inform" the Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees semiannually of any electronic surveillance undertaken without a court order. But it would also scale back a 1947 law that governs reports on government intelligence activities to Congress, requiring only that the chairmen of each congressional intelligence committee be privy to those documents.

Perhaps most notably, one section would erase the need for the government to obtain a warrant when tapping into "foreign-to-foreign" communications, even if Americans are involved in those exchanges, said Mike German, a policy counsel for the ACLU. Under existing law, a showing of probable cause is required, he said, meaning that "a U.S. person located abroad would lose his right to privacy under this section of the bill."

There are obvious implications for global marketers if their every electronic communications can be monitored with impunity and without oversight. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Information of critical commercial sensitivity might once again end up being entrusted to personal messengers and carrier pigeons. Attention Mata Hari, we have a job for you over in Corporate Affairs.