was sort of put on a leash there was a organization called the foreign intelligence surveillance court created that n.s.a. had to submit to in order to use drop within the united states and that worked fine up until. president bush decided to bypass the face of core bypassed the one sort of buffer between the n.s.a. and american public and do warrantless eavesdropping for a number of years until it was exposed by the new york times and then congress largely ratified that and watered down the protections from the vice a court the foreign intelligence surveillance court and that's where we are today the n.s.a. is getting bigger the protections are getting weaker and what does this mean this center and this trend that you just described. for individual privacy in the united states for people who are not. in a. i don't want to say politically active people people who are not involving themselves in anything that might remotely be considered terrorists you don't have to look at the watch list they had somewhere around a million names on it most of them probably eighty five ninety percent we

foreign intelligence surveillance act and 1,745 requests were made last year and all but 69 were for electronic surveillance. the spokesman for justice says "the number of politicians the government submits to the foreign intelligence surveillance courtourt authorized surveillance varies from year to year and depends on many factors." the annual numbers have gone up-and-down. and up. over the past decade. indeed the height of the requests was in between 20 when close to 2,400 were approved. last year's uptick is the intelligence community finally mastering changes enacted in 2008. and attorney general holder is urging congress new to renew title 7 of the law which expires at the end of the year allowing our spy agencies to target foreigners without a court order, u.s. libertarians say big brother has never been bigger. >> the surveillance authority in the act are absolutely critical to our national security. it is a critical tool we have in keeping the american people safe. >> a lot of people have accepted the meth that when the government invades our piracy it keeps us safe. it does not keep us safe. it puts tremendous personal private information not hands of people what could misuse it. >>reporter: it was enacted post watergate to

administration has made to a special panel of 11 federal judges known as the fisa court after the foreign intelligence surveillancerequests were approved although two were withdrawn. all about 69 were for electronic surveillance. national security officials say fisa has been essential tool in the war on terror including the effort to neutralize al qaeda. the rise in wiretaps is not attributable to the famous raid on usama bin laden's pakistani compound nor to any specific operation. they also note at their high point back in 2007, as you can see these figures edged toward 2400 in one year. officials told fox news the intelligence community is only now fully accustomed to the changes in the law that president bush signed in 2008. the title 7 of the fisa law is set to expire at year's end. it allows targeting of categories of non-u.s. citizens abroad without need for court order on each individual target. attorney general eric holder told the senate, quote this is provision is critical to our national security. >> and so the administration strongly supports the reauthorization and as you indicated hopes that it occu

longer be able to wiretap certain categories of foreign citizens overseas without first obtaining a court order under the rules of the surveillance i intelligence>> could you explain the need to reauthorize title 7 of fiza. >> i authorize as the head of the national security division does. it is a critical tool that we have in keeping the american people safe. >> national security officials tell fox news these surveillance techniques have played a key role in the u.s. effort to neutralize al-qaeda but cautioned no single operation such as the raid on osama bin laden's compound in pakistan occasions an increase in surveillance from one year to the next. >> what was behind the spike in wiretap requests? >> officials say it really only reflects the community finally mastering the changes to fiza. the peak request was was 2007 when there were nearly 2400 of them. the fisa court is made up of 1100 judges who do moonlighting who in reality almost always approve the requests from the doj. >>> a woman in texas watched over video conference as her army officer h husband died in afghanistan. it happened monday. nobody is saying yet how he died, just that