July 22, 2008 Eavesdropping under FISA Play video

(NECN) - It was a major political coup for President Bush. On July 10, he signed the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. Democratic leaders had vowed to block the bill if it offered immunity to companies that cooperate with federal wiretaps. In the end they didn't have the votes.

President Bush's FISA victory drove a wedge between Barack Obama and liberal bloggers. It caused civil libertarians in Massachusetts to raise an outcry about a new law that sacrifices internet privacy in the name of protecting children from sexual predators.

Carol Rose is the executive director of the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. And Robert Roughsedge is an attorney who teaches terrorism and the law at Suffolk University.