Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Senate Investigates Government Spying Program, 02/06/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june06/nsa_2-06.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is a wiretap? When are wiretaps used?

2. Does the government have the right to listen in to phone conversations?

3. In the war against terror, when might the government want to listen to a private telephone conversation?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What is the Senate debating this week?

The U.S. Senate is debating whether the Bush administration's program to spy on American citizens as part of the fight against terrorism is legal.

2. What is FISA?

Critics and some legal scholars argue that the wiretaps conducted by the National Security Administration (NSA) violate a law called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed by Congress in 1978.

3. Why does President Bush believe he has the right to listen in on domestic conversations?

President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and other intelligence experts claim the USA Patriot Act gives them the authority to listen in on domestic conversations, as does the 2002 congressional authorization to use military force against terrorism.

4. When and why was FISA passed?

In 1975, Senator Frank Church, Democrat from Idaho, opened an investigation into accusations that President Nixon had illegally spied on U.S. citizens.

At the request of the Nixon administration, the NSA began monitoring the telephone conversations of civil rights activists and Vietnam War protestors.

After the hearings, the Church Committee strongly recommended that the NSA should not be allowed to wiretap domestically unless it had a court-provided warrant.

Three years later, the Senate approved the FISA law, which created a special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to approve warrants for domestic wiretapping.

5. What are the rules about domestic eavesdropping as outlined by FISA?

Under this law, the NSA may eavesdrop on a suspected terrorist for up to 72 hours before applying for a warrant through the FISA court.

After that period of time, the government must appear before the 11-member court and prove that the suspect has ties to a terrorist group or a foreign power.

6. What does the attorney general say about Congress's post-Sept. 11 authorization to use military action against terrorism?

Gonzales told the NewsHour that as a part of the post-Sept. 11, 2001 authorization to use military action against terrorism, "the Congress intended for the president to engage in all of those activities that are fundamentally incidental to waging war, including electronic surveillance."

7. What does Tom Daschle say about the authorization?

Former Senator Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat who was Senate majority leader at the time, wrote a recent opinion piece in The Washington Post that said he was confident that "the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance."

8. How do Article II and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution relate to this case?

The Bush administration also has argued for a broad interpretation of Article II in the Constitution, the section that explains the powers given to the president.

"The president has inherent authority given to him directly by the Constitution ... to take measures to defend the country that include gathering foreign intelligence," said Bradford Berenson, a former advisor to President Bush.

Administration officials claim the FISA law hampers counterterrorism efforts and places unnecessary restrictions on law enforcement.

Other critics assert that the NSA program violates the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures" and requires "probable cause" before a warrant can be issued.

In his prepared statement before the Judiciary Committee, Gonzales explained that the warrantless wiretapping's focus on terrorist suspects "fully satisfies the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment."

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. In his State of the Union address, President Bush said, "If there are people inside our country who are talking with al-Qaida, we want to know about it because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again." Do you agree? Why or why not?

2. Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as saying: "He who would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." Do you think this relates to the current debate about domestic eavesdropping?

3. Keep a list of the words different officials use to describe domestic eavesdropping. Which is the most accurate? How do politicians use words to strengthen their case?

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.