There.s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says

[J.A. Terranson]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/secret-patriot-act/

You may think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to 
spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says it.s worse than you.ve 
heard.

Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the 
surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress 
will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of 
the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself . entirely in secret. 
Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation 
to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a .dragnet. for massive amounts 
of information on private citizens; the government portrays its 
data-collection efforts much differently.

.We.re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and 
what the American government secretly thinks the law says,. Wyden tells 
Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. .When you.ve got that 
kind of a gap, you.re going to have a problem on your hands..

What exactly does Wyden mean by that? As a member of the intelligence 
committee, he laments that he can.t precisely explain without disclosing 
classified information. But one component of the Patriot Act in particular 
gives him immense pause: the so-called .business-records provision,. which 
empowers the FBI to get businesses, medical offices, banks and other 
organizations to turn over any .tangible things. it deems relevant to a 
security investigation.

.It is fair to say that the business-records provision is a part of the 
Patriot Act that I am extremely interested in reforming,. Wyden says. .I 
know a fair amount about how it.s interpreted, and I am going to keep 
pushing, as I have, to get more information about how the Patriot Act is 
being interpreted declassified. I think the public has a right to public 
debate about it..

That.s why Wyden and his colleague Sen. Mark Udall offered an amendment on 
Tuesday to the Patriot Act reauthorization.

The amendment, first reported by Marcy Wheeler, blasts the administration 
for .secretly reinterpret[ing] public laws and statutes.. It would compel 
the Attorney General to .publicly disclose the United States Government.s 
official interpretation of the USA Patriot Act.. And, intriguingly, it 
refers to .intelligence-collection authorities. embedded in the Patriot 
Act that the administration briefed the Senate about in February.

Wyden says he .can.t answer. any specific questions about how the 
government thinks it can use the Patriot Act. That would risk revealing 
classified information . something Wyden considers an abuse of government 
secrecy. He believes the techniques themselves should stay secret, but the 
rationale for using their legal use under Patriot ought to be disclosed.

.I draw a sharp line between the secret interpretation of the law, which I 
believe is a growing problem, and protecting operations and methods in the 
intelligence area, which have to be protected,. he says.

Surveillance under the business-records provisions has recently spiked. 
The Justice Department.s official disclosure on its use of the Patriot 
Act, delivered to Congress in April, reported that the government asked 
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval to collect 
business records 96 times in 2010 . up from just 21 requests the year 
before. The court didn.t reject a single request. But it .modified. those 
requests 43 times, indicating to some Patriot-watchers that a broadening 
of the provision is underway.

.The FISA Court is a pretty permissive body, so that suggests something 
novel or particularly aggressive, not just in volume, but in the nature of 
the request,. says Michelle Richardson, the ACLU.s resident Patriot Act 
lobbyist. .No one has tipped their hand on this in the slightest. But 
we.ve come to the conclusion that this is some kind of bulk collection. It 
wouldn.t be surprising to me if it.s some kind of internet or 
communication-records dragnet.. (Full disclosure: My fiancie works for the 
ACLU.)

The FBI deferred comment on any secret interpretation of the Patriot Act 
to the Justice Department. The Justice Department said it wouldn.t have 
any comment beyond a bit of March congressional testimony from its top 
national security official, Todd Hinnen, who presented the type of 
material collected as far more individualized and specific: .driver.s 
license records, hotel records, car-rental records, apartment-leasing 
records, credit card records, and the like..

But that.s not what Udall sees. He warned in a Tuesday statement about the 
government.s .unfettered. access to bulk citizen data, like .a cellphone 
company.s phone records.. In a Senate floor speech on Tuesday, Udall urged 
Congress to restrict the Patriot Act.s business-records seizures to 
.terrorism investigations. . something the ostensible counterterrorism 
measure has never required in its nearly 10-year existence.

Indeed, Hinnen allowed himself an out in his March testimony, saying that 
the business-record provision .also. enabled .important and highly 
sensitive intelligence-collection operations. to take place. Wheeler 
speculates those operations include .using geolocation data from 
cellphones to collect information on the whereabouts of Americans. . 
something our sister blog Threat Level has reported on extensively.

It.s worth noting that Wyden is pushing a bill providing greater privacy 
protections for geolocation info.

For now, Wyden.s considering his options ahead of the Patriot Act vote on 
Thursday. He wants to compel as much disclosure as he can on the secret 
interpretation, arguing that a shadow broadening of the Patriot Act sets a 
dangerous precedent.

.I.m talking about instances where the government is relying on secret 
interpretations of what the law says without telling the public what those 
interpretations are,. Wyden says, .and the reliance on secret 
interpretations of the law is growing..

Site: Oregon.gov

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Sounds like Obama hasn't just embraced Gitmo, he's embraced secret laws 
through "Opinions" written by flunkies of the Office of Legal Counsel as 
well.  

What a pity that a guy who we all expected would be one of history's great 
presidents has turned into one of history's worst embarrasments.  I would 
never have believed that GWB could be seen as a "moderate" standing next 
to Obama, but the truth is there for us all to see.   

So sad.

//Alif

-- 
I hate Missouri.  Land of the free, home of the perjuriously deranged.