In a letter sent today, CDT urged Senators to vote against S.2248, the FISA Amendments Act, because it permits the executive branch, not the judiciary, to authorize surveillance programs through which communications of Americans would be collected in the U.S. CDT called this "a fundamentally flawed approach" when the privacy of Americans in the U.S. is at stake. It also urged support for pro-civil liberties amendments that would mitigate several of the more onerous surveillance powers given the government under the revamped FISA legislation.