|
hot4bondage -> RE: Obama signs Patriot Act (6/1/2011 6:36:12 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: mnottertail
quote:
ORIGINAL: hot4bondage
quote:
ORIGINAL: ExquisiteStings
There will will be at least two candidates in the Republican primary who are against it. Obama will be the only choice in the Democrat primary. He's not only for it, he has a secret interpretation of it that not too many people seem concerned about, unfortunately.
If it is secret, how do you know about it?
Wired.com There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says
By Spencer Ackerman May 25, 2011
"You think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden says it’s worse than you know.
Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. Wyden (D-Oregon) says that powers they grant the government on their face, the government applies a far broader legal interpretation — an interpretation that the government has conveniently classified, so it cannot be publicly assessed or challenged. But one prominent Patriot-watcher asserts that the secret interpretation empowers the government to deploy ”dragnets” 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 told 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.”
|
|
|
|
