Senator Wyden: There are classified provisions of the Patriot Act

[AuH20]

;)

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

[evilfunnystuff]

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[misconstrued]

This article really infuriates me. WTF has happened to our country?!?!

[Lucille]

It makes me want to just sit down and cry.

[FreedomProsperityPeace]

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.Ron Paul could make a lot of hay out of this. :D *rubs hands together*

[tangent4ronpaul]

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 fiancée 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.

Anyone surprised?

[iGGz]

That's some major BS right thurr

[certaindeath4]

I understand this could be regarded as little more than gossip, but the discussion going on here http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/hk52r/there_is_a_secret_patriot_act/ (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/secret-patriot-act) has some good points, and additional links.

[anaconda]

This is the last straw. I can now only laugh at how shameless, evil, and self serving the federal bureaucracy is.

[Maximilian American]

Wow, sharing now

[Agorism]

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