Cebu_4_2
6th September 2013, 02:13 PM
Patriot Act’s author files court papers to stop ‘frightening’ Obama abuses
The Washington Times
Friday, September 6, 2013
http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2013/09/06/ap940796707370_s160x107.jpg?6ac50f60a459a9d02e0f8f bcfa10b77b4a677545 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/ap940796707370jpg/)
**FILE** Rep. James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin Republican, testifies July 17, 2013, at a ... more > (http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/ap940796707370jpg/)
The chief author of the Patriot Act announced Friday that he’s joined a lawsuit seeking to stop the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of records, saying that the Obama administration is going far beyond what he intended when he wrote the law in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican and chief sponsor of the Patriot Act, filed a amicus curiae brief on Wednesday saying he was misled about the scope of snooping the government intended to use the Patriot Act for, and said he would not have backed reauthorizing key parts of the law if he had known about it.
“This misinterpretation of the law threatens our First, Second and Fourth Amendment rights,” Mr. Sensenbrenner said in a statement after he filed his legal brief. “Congress never intended this. I will rein in the abuse of both the Patriot Act and the U.S. Constitution with the support of the American public.”
His brief raises serious separation of powers questions over how far the president can stretch a law beyond what Congress specifically intended.
Mr. Sensenbrenner said Section 215 of the act, which granted the government the ability to collect records from companies, was meant to apply only when the government thought the records were important to a specific investigation.
The National Security Agency has interpreted the section to mean it can demand and store years’ worth of data about phone calls, and later go back and look at the relevant data as part of investigations.
In its own court filing last month, the government said its approach is reasonable.
“Even if collecting telephony metadata involved a Fourth Amendment ‘search’ (it does not), the Fourth Amendment bars only ‘unreasonable’ searches and seizures, whereas the collection of metadata at issue here is reasonable under the standard the Supreme Court applies to assess suspicionless searches that serve special government needs,” the Justice Department said.
Mr. Sensenbrenner, though, said that amounts to a “dragnet” of Americans’ records that has “frightening implications.”
In his lawsuit, he said Congress “required that the records sought be relevant to ‘an authorized investigation,’ rather than relevant to general or omnibus efforts to combat terrorism. Congress thus required intelligence agencies to establish a specific link between the records sought and a specific, individual investigation.”
Mr. Sensenbrenner said the government’s interpretation that every phone call is relevant to terrorism investigations could lead to authorities saying every gun sale is also relevant — and to begin building a database of gun owners.
Mr. Sensenbrenner joined a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is seeking to halt the NSA’s records collection. The National Rifle Association has also filed an amicus brief challenging the Obama administration’s actions.
The Patriot Act passed in 2001, but some provisions, including the records collection section, were considered so touchy that they were set to expire unless Congress reauthorized them.
Congress did so in 2006, 2009 and 2011.
The government argues that even if Congress didn’t mean for such a broad collection of records, they tacitly approved it by reauthorizing the law even though the government had submitted a secret report to Capitol Hill explaining they interpreted their authority that broadly.
Story Continues → (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/6/patriot-act-author-sues-frightening-obama-abuses/?page=2)
The Washington Times
Friday, September 6, 2013
http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2013/09/06/ap940796707370_s160x107.jpg?6ac50f60a459a9d02e0f8f bcfa10b77b4a677545 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/ap940796707370jpg/)
**FILE** Rep. James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin Republican, testifies July 17, 2013, at a ... more > (http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/ap940796707370jpg/)
The chief author of the Patriot Act announced Friday that he’s joined a lawsuit seeking to stop the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of records, saying that the Obama administration is going far beyond what he intended when he wrote the law in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican and chief sponsor of the Patriot Act, filed a amicus curiae brief on Wednesday saying he was misled about the scope of snooping the government intended to use the Patriot Act for, and said he would not have backed reauthorizing key parts of the law if he had known about it.
“This misinterpretation of the law threatens our First, Second and Fourth Amendment rights,” Mr. Sensenbrenner said in a statement after he filed his legal brief. “Congress never intended this. I will rein in the abuse of both the Patriot Act and the U.S. Constitution with the support of the American public.”
His brief raises serious separation of powers questions over how far the president can stretch a law beyond what Congress specifically intended.
Mr. Sensenbrenner said Section 215 of the act, which granted the government the ability to collect records from companies, was meant to apply only when the government thought the records were important to a specific investigation.
The National Security Agency has interpreted the section to mean it can demand and store years’ worth of data about phone calls, and later go back and look at the relevant data as part of investigations.
In its own court filing last month, the government said its approach is reasonable.
“Even if collecting telephony metadata involved a Fourth Amendment ‘search’ (it does not), the Fourth Amendment bars only ‘unreasonable’ searches and seizures, whereas the collection of metadata at issue here is reasonable under the standard the Supreme Court applies to assess suspicionless searches that serve special government needs,” the Justice Department said.
Mr. Sensenbrenner, though, said that amounts to a “dragnet” of Americans’ records that has “frightening implications.”
In his lawsuit, he said Congress “required that the records sought be relevant to ‘an authorized investigation,’ rather than relevant to general or omnibus efforts to combat terrorism. Congress thus required intelligence agencies to establish a specific link between the records sought and a specific, individual investigation.”
Mr. Sensenbrenner said the government’s interpretation that every phone call is relevant to terrorism investigations could lead to authorities saying every gun sale is also relevant — and to begin building a database of gun owners.
Mr. Sensenbrenner joined a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is seeking to halt the NSA’s records collection. The National Rifle Association has also filed an amicus brief challenging the Obama administration’s actions.
The Patriot Act passed in 2001, but some provisions, including the records collection section, were considered so touchy that they were set to expire unless Congress reauthorized them.
Congress did so in 2006, 2009 and 2011.
The government argues that even if Congress didn’t mean for such a broad collection of records, they tacitly approved it by reauthorizing the law even though the government had submitted a secret report to Capitol Hill explaining they interpreted their authority that broadly.
Story Continues → (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/6/patriot-act-author-sues-frightening-obama-abuses/?page=2)