Now, under traditional FISA rules and the Restore Act, the NSA can listen in on phone calls of foreigners outside the country without a warrant. They can also wiretap internet fiber optic cables outside the United States without a warrant. They can bribe a foreign ISP to help them read foreigners' emails without a warrant. After much back and forth, Hoekstra's spokesman admitted as much.
So how could Hoekstra defend Klein's writing that the Restore Act "would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's call to be approved by the FISA Court."
Well, Hoekstra (and the National Review) didn't tell you that they weren't using the dictionary definition of surveillance. They aren't using the term as you and I and the rest of the country (excepting a handful of D.C. lawyers) understand it.
Instead, Hoekstra was using FISA's definition of surveillance, which, as one of the law's oddities, says that listening in on foreigners' phone calls from taps outside the country or wiretapping the internet in a foreign country isn't surveillance.
