Public Said to Be Misled on Use of the Patriot Act

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Two United States senators on Wednesday accused the Justice Department of making misleading statements about the legal justification of secret domestic surveillance activities that the government is apparently carrying out under the Patriot Act.

The lawmakers — Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, both of whom are Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee — sent a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. calling for him to “correct the public record” and to ensure that future department statements about the authority the government believes is conveyed by the surveillance law would not be misleading.

“We believe that the best way to avoid a negative public reaction and an erosion of confidence in U.S. intelligence agencies is to initiate an informed public debate about these authorities today,” the two wrote. “However, if the executive branch is unwilling to do that, then it is particularly important for government officials to avoid compounding that problem by making misleading statements.”

The Justice Department denied being misleading about the Patriot Act, saying it has acknowledged that a secret, sensitive intelligence program is based on the law and that its statements about the matter have been accurate.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/us/politics/justice-dept-is-accused-of-misleading-public-on-patriot-act.html

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Isn't it sad when the ONLY presidential candidate opposed to the PATRIOT Act (Ron Paul) is otherwise a crank in all other issues? (Senator Bernie Sanders voted against extending the act but is NOT YET A 2012 candidate.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Go on...

[boppers]

2. A willfully blind public refuses to see, so blame the very people who the public ignores?

Well, at least it might get some more attention on the issue.

Before PATRIOT and FISA:
Intelligence and LEO could intercept your phone calls, read your emails, check your purchases, track your browser history, track your location via your phone/car, rifle your medical records, whatever. They couldn't use most of it in court, though, without a warrant.

With current (it's all been tweaked a few times) PATRIOT and FISA:
Intelligence and LEO could intercept your phone calls, read your emails, check your purchases, track your browser history, track your location via your phone/car, rifle your medical records, whatever. They can't use all of it in court, though, without a warrant.

PATRIOT just made some of the standard tools that were already in use (for decades, mind you) more "legal" to use as evidence.

[Rabblevox]

4. Your use of the term "LEO" and your implication that it is a single entity, is the first clue...

that you know nothing about what you speak. Your "before" graph is rife with both factual and logical errors. After you've learned a bit about PATRIOT, PATRIOT 2, and modern constitutional history, come back and try playing with the big kids again.

[boppers]

5. I glossed over details intentionally. If you want a tussle, I can oblige.

Lets take, oh, phone tapping.

It's totally legal to tap (Without a warrant) a payphone stall, but not a closed payphone booth.

Why? No expectation of privacy.

Expand that to cell phones, and it's totally legal to tap (without a warrant) a cell phone conversation that somebody has while they are walking down the street to their car, but *not* once they are in the car. Not because they are technically different taps (both are radio transmissions to absolutely everybody within a listening area), but because people feel there is "privacy" behind doors. Law is about rules, not "common sense".

On email?

No privacy, third party doctrine, with Stored Communications Act amendments..... which usually get trumped by private carrier law.

Regardless of all that, in case I didn't make my argument clear:
1. You are monitored, if you have lived in the US, for the past 50 years.
2. Laws determine what monitoring is legal to present as evidence.

If you want to tussle with the "big kids", you're going to have to offer better arguments than claiming "factual and logical errors" ...without pointing to a single example.

[No Elephants]

11. And you are going to have to cite at least one case title per point.

[bread_and_roses]

7. Is that a defense of the Patriot Act? Or "just" this Admin's use of same?

It sure reads like one but I am more than willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

[No Elephants]

13. What is special about this administration's use of the Patriot Act--and how would we know?

[boppers]

16. No, not a defense.

I personally don't believe that *ANY* government, or private, monitoring, should be legal without the knowledge, and consent, of the monitored, *OR* a warrant.

However, a vast majority of people seem to have been living under the assumption that my position was the actual situation.

[No Elephants]

10. "Just?" "Legal" in quotes? Wow.

You really don't get the point of excluding evidence obtained by law enforcement in violation of the Fourth Amendment?

Courts cannot put someone in jail for violating the Fourth Amendment, unless someone passes a law that gives courts that power. However, courts can make illegally obtained evidence inadmissible in court and thereby take away at least some of the incentive for violating the First Amendment. And, so courts did the most they could do to preserve our Fourth Amendment rights.

Also, there is a world difference between what is technologically possible for private individuals and what is expressly allowed to government by federal law. As you no doubt know, we have no Fourth Amendment rights whatever against private parties, but we have them against the federal government, or, at least, we did.

If you want to use the word "just" to describe what is, for practical purposes, the writing of the Fourth Amendment out of the Bill of Rights, that is up to you.

I hope the SCOTUS does not follow suit, though I fear it will.

[bread_and_roses]

14. I must be more unclear than usual - I oppose both the PA & this Admin's use of it

from day one.

[msongs]

3. bush 1 to bush 2 to bush 3 in terms of patriot act...against us nt

[Vidar]

15. Amen to that!

[SavWriter]

6. I honestly detest the PATRIOT Act

I detest the National Security Letters. I hate the ability of the Government to arrest you and hold you without charges for National Security. I abhor the wiretapping. I hate the contractors acting where the Government can't legally go. I hate the naked scanners at the airport. I hate the intrusive pat downs of people. I hate the stupidity of the TSA. I hate the illusion of security it creates. I can honestly say I haven't seen one thing yet that I like about the PATRIOT Act.

I hate it. I always have, and I always will. Unless I get a National Security letter that tells me I'll go to jail if I mention it to anyone, including my lawyer, instructing me to claim that I love it.

I always wondered. If they arrest you for violating the National Security letter by talking to your lawyer, do they have to advise you that you have a right to an attorney during questioning? Turns out the answer is no. They don't advise you, and you don't have a right to talk to anyone. They hold you in solitary and deny you any visitors including legal.

What astounds me is this. We Democrats renewed the abomination. WE DID. We had a majority of the Congress, and we had the White House. To me, that was the darkest day of the administration of President Obama. In my dreams, we had Congress announce that it was dying in a country where Civil Rights mattered. If the Repugniks objected, ask them to suggest means of preventing Terrorism that didn't violate the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments. Or at least violated only ONE amendment.

[mwb970]

8. The very NAME is misleading.

Then it's all downhill from there.

[OwnedByFerrets]

9. This comes under the heading No Shit.

[No Elephants]

12. TERRA! An excuse for anything and everything. Endless wars, shredding the Constitution. Getting

felt up. Who cares?

After all, "they" have kept us safe.

From everyone but "them," that is.