The American Civil Liberties Union vowed Wednesday to sue President Bush before the ink is dry on his signature putting new electronic snooping measures in play.

"This fight is not over. We intend to challenge this bill as soon as President Bush signs it into law," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. "The bill allows the warrantless and dragnet surveillance of Americans' international telephone and email communications. It plainly violates the Fourth Amendment."

The Senate approved legislation earlier in the day overhauling the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which includes legal immunity for telecommunications companies which collaborated with the administration's warrantless monitoring of Americans' e-mails and telephone calls.   

The White House hailed passage of the act.

We know that information we have been able to acquire about foreign threats will help us detect and prevent attacks on our homeland," Bush said in a statement. "Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, has assured me that this bill gives him the most immediate tools he needs to defeat the intentions of our enemies. And so in signing this legislation today I am heartened to know that his critical work will be strengthened and we will be better armed to prevent attacks in the future.

The ACLU called the bill "a blatant assault upon civil liberties and the right to privacy." See its full statement, here.