The undergraduate thesis began with the research question of whether the Islamic community is being profiled by the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. At the beginning of the project, the researcher's hypothesis was that Muslim community had fallen victim to profiling through the use of electronic surveillance conducted by the American government. The research presented reveals a pattern of profiling and injustices against many different groups of Americans throughout the history of United States surveillance laws starting with the illegal alcohol producers in the 1920's. Amendments to FISA have set necessary modern electronic surveillance regulations back 30 years. The researcher brings to light the injustices the Islamic community has endured out of the panic caused by the attacks on 9/11. The research presented was achieved by using empirical legal studies techniques of incorporating a mix-methods approach to utilize both quantitative and qualitative research components. The researcher developed a spreadsheet that included all published federal opinions of prosecutions involving FISA since its enactment in 1978. Statistical data was analyzed using frequency and average software, known as Stata, and the results of study suggest an extreme increase in the amount of prosecutions involving the Islamic community since 9/11 compared to prior.

This dissertation explores the battle to democratize the national security state, 1970-1978. It examines the neo-progressive movement to institutionalize a new domestic policy regime, in an attempt to force government transparency, protect individual privacy from state intrusion, and create new judicial and legislative checks on domestic security operations. It proceeds chronologically, first outlining the state's overwhelming response to the domestic unrest of the 1960s. During this period, the Department of Justice developed new capacities to better predict urban unrest, growing a computerized databank that contained millions of dossiers on dissenting Americans and the Department of Defense greatly expanded existing capacities, applying cold war counterinsurgency and counterintelligence techniques developed abroad to the problems of protests and riots at home. The remainder of the dissertation examines how the state's secret response to unrest and disorder became public in the early 1970s. It traces the development of a loose coalition of reformers who challenged domestic security policy and coordinated legislative and litigative strategies to check executive power. / History

Electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes was largely unregulated prior to 1978. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (hereinafter "FISA") was enacted to implement a judicial authorization process for foreign intelligence electronic surveillance that would effectively balance competing needs for national security and civil liberty under the Fourth Amendment. This study examines the evolution of FISA and its effectiveness under the Fourth Amendment, as assessed by federal reviewing courts and scholars since the statute's enactment. The study concludes that the FISA electronic surveillance authorization process has been effective in providing a constitutional mechanism to obtain foreign intelligence information.

通訊監察區分為「犯罪通訊監察」及「情報通訊監察」二大種類，犯罪通訊監察須針對特定犯罪活動而為之偵查行為，而情報通訊監察則係針對外國勢力及其工作人員危害國家安全之行為而為國家預警情報作為。世界各民主先進國家在將通訊監察法治化及透過實際案例之修正後，逐步建立起類似之通訊監察立法通則，如比例原則、令狀原則監察、透明化、保護隱私權益、重罪原則、特定性、補充性原則等，幾已成為犯罪通訊監察法治不可違逆之普世價值； 然在情報通訊監察部分，各國則因歷史背景之不同，其情報通訊監察法治發展是不一而足，其法律保留、授權密度、證據能力、救濟及監督方式皆大相逕庭。 我國情報通訊監察規範於民國88年與犯罪通訊監察一併規範於「通訊保障及監察法」中，條文規範略嫌簡略，依據民國100年修正之國家情報工作法，立法政策將朝向情報通訊監察單獨立法邁進。 為探討我國情報通訊監察制度之現存問題，本文研究分析美國「外國情報通訊監察法（The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978,FISA）」及德國「G10法（Gesetz zur Beschränkung des Brief-, Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnisses,Gesetz zu Artikel 10 Grundgesetz – G10）」之情報通訊監察法治，與我國現行規範加以比較，並對未來設立專法提出建議。 / Electronic surveillance can be divided into criminal surveillance and intelligence surveillance. Different from the intelligence surveillance, criminal surveillance should be solely engaged in for specific criminal law enforcement purposes. Intelligence surveillance is directed at the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used between or among foreign powers for the purpose of national security. Through the electronic surveillance legalization process of the advanced democracy countries, we can summarize a few principles such as the principle of proportionality, warrant, privacy, felony, particularity and complementarity which have became the universal value of the criminal surveillance. Nevertheless, the development of the intelligence surveillance in each country is by no means an isolated case because of the different background. They are different from law reservation, the intensity of judicial review, admissibility and judicial remedy, etc. In 1999, the rules of intelligence surveillance were regulated in Communication Protection and Monitoring Law with criminal surveillance, and the regulations of the intelligence surveillance are sort of incomplete. According to the amendment of the National Intelligence Services Law of 2011, the independent legislation of intelligence surveillance is imperative in future. In order to solve the problems of intelligence surveillance in Taiwan, the thesis introduced and compared the “The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA)” in the U.S.A, and the “Gesetz zur Beschränkung des Brief-, Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnisses,Gesetz zu Artikel 10 Grundgesetz (G10)”in Germany with the Communication Protection and Monitoring Law in Taiwan. Hopefully the thesis could provide the directions of the independent legislation of intelligence surveillance in future.