FISA courts will now oversee warrantless wiretaps

In a letter addressed to the Senate Judicial Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez announced that the warrantless surveillance of communications from suspected terrorists abroad with persons in the United States will now be overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Previously these wiretaps were part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program the Bush administration authorized in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

The Bush administration had argued that the FISA courts were too slow and their standards were too burdensome to be useful in tracking down the members of al Qaeda and related organizations. Nevertheless, the administration was widely criticized for having expanded the powers of the executive in the eyes of the program's critics.

The New York Times reports that Justice Department officials did not say whether the FISA court had addressed the Bush administration's earlier concerns by agreeing to streamline their cumbersome procedures or standards or whether the order that was issued pertained to individual cases.