A Patriot Act History Lesson: How Warnings Were Mocked in the Senate
In 2006, Russ Feingold anticipated exactly how the government would stretch, exploit, and abuse vague language -- and was derided for it.
During the winter of 2006, the U.S. Senate was debating the re-authorization of the Patriot Act. The legislation would ultimately pass by a wide margin, and George W. Bush signed it into law. But before that could happen, civil libertarians, led by then-Senator Russ Feingold, tried to amend the 2001 law. They warned that its overly broad language would permit government to pry into the privacy of innocent Americans and warned about the likelihood of executive branch "fishing expeditions."
Dismissive Senate colleagues scoffed at their concerns.
The scene takes place on the Senate floor on February 16, 2006. Feingold was trying to amend the Patriot Act, arguing that Section 215, a part of the law core to the NSA controversy, gives the government "extremely broad powers to secretly obtain people's business records." Said Feingold (emphases mine throughout):
The Senate bill would have required that the government prove to a judge that the records it sought had some link to suspected terrorists or spies or their activities. The conference report does not include this requirement. Now, the conference report does contain some improvements to Section 215, at least around the edges. It contains minimization requirements, meaning that the executive branch has to set rules for whether and how to retain and share information about U.S. citizens and permanent residents obtained from the records. And it requires clearance from a senior FBI official before the government can seek to obtain particularly sensitive records like library, gun and medical records.
But the core issue with Section 215 is the standard for obtaining these records in the first place. Neither the minimization procedures nor the high level signoff changes the fact that the government can still obtain sensitive business records of innocent, law-abiding Americans. The standard in the conference report -- "relevance" -- will still allow government fishing expeditions. That is unacceptable.
He went on:
Today we know that the government has invoked Section 215 to obtain call data on all Verizon customers, and has very likely been used to collect data on tens or hundreds of millions of Americans who are customers of all the major telecom carriers. Feingold was exactly correct: The sensitive business records of innocent, law-abiding Americans were seized because the minimization standard, "relevance," turns out not to minimize affected Americans at all. Additionally, it has so far proved not just very difficult but impossible to get meaningful judicial review.
But back in 2006, when Feingold remained a lonely voice in opposition to Patriot Act re-authorization, look at how Kyl, speaking on the same day, derisively dismissed his concerns.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/patriot-act-history-lesson-how-feingolds-warnings-were-mocked-in-the-senate/277612/
blm
(113,113 posts)stood his ground against the rest of it when he didn't get the changes he wanted. Sad that he lost his seat to a RW nut job.
4dsc
(5,787 posts)who voted in favor of this act.
Why?