For those of you who are concerned with the current wiretapping laws, you might be interested to hear this. Recently, this law has been modified so that legal authorities can keep your phone lines tapped for an additional 15 days. Oh yeah, and don’t bother trying to file a lawsuit against you telecommunications company either, for there was much discussion about the fact of immunizing telecommunication companies from lawsuits that cooperated with the NSA…

Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed on Wednesday a two-week extension to the Protect America Act, a controversial electronic surveillance law that allows the U.S. government to wiretap the communications of persons located outside the U.S. without first getting a warrant.

Congress and the Bush Administration continue to battle over a replacement for the law. A major sticking point is whether telecommunications companies that previously cooperated with the National Security Agency, the federal department in charge of foreign surveillance and communications security, should be exempt from lawsuits. While the Bush Administration had opposed any temporary extension to the law, President Bush is expected to allow the extension.

Last week, the Senate voted 60-36 to advance a bill that allows year-long authorization of wiretapping activities and would give retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that gave the Bush Administration access to their customers communications without the warrants required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Under FISA, passed in 1978, the government is allowed to wiretap targets of interest, as long as it applied for a warrant within 72 hours.[more]

Tags: Voicemail/VoIP, Mobile Security