U.S. Senators Issue Strong Warning About The Patriot Act

For more than two years, a handful of Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee have warned that the government is secretly interpreting its surveillance powers under thePatriot Act in a way that would be alarming if the public — or even others in Congress — knew about it.


On Thursday, two of those senators —Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado — went further. They said a top-secret intelligence operation that is based on that secret legal theory is not as crucial to national security as executive branch officials have maintained.

The dispute centers on what the government thinks it is allowed to do under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, under which agents may obtain a secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing them to get access to any “tangible things” — like business records — that are deemed “relevant” to a terrorism or espionage investigation.

There appears to be both an ordinary use for Section 215 orders — akin to using a grand jury subpoena to get specific information in a traditional criminal investigation — and aseparate, classified intelligence collection activity that also relies upon them.

When governments allow secrets to become more important than transparency and the rule of law it leads to authoritarianism.  Descent and openness are what allow governments to thrive.  Secrets allow them to turn in upon themselves and against the people they were elected to govern.