Living Under The Patriot Act: Educating A Society

We're living '1984' today

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Early Saturday morning, the Senate failed to pass both a two-month extension of the current program, as well as a House alternative that sought to keep many of the NSA's surveillance abilities intact. With the Senate set to take a week-long recess, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the chamber will meet again on Sunday, May 31, to consider ways that would not let the program expire. As the debate roils, get up to speed on NSA surveillance, how the Patriot Act authorized it and why Congress may -- or may not -- reform the program.

Within weeks of the attacks, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the bill into law, giving law enforcement and intelligence authorities unprecedented domestic authority -- and the tools to wield that authority -- to thwart plots against the United States. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including emails, the Internet, and cell phones.

But it would end up doing much more -- more, even, than the law's major supporters and its primary architect on Capitol Hill, Wisconsin Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, ever imagined possible. So that part about cell phones. That's how the NSA started collecting phone records on millions of Americans? Yes, but the Patriot Act wasn't actually used for the justification for bulk metadata collection until The Bush administration would eventually use the Patriot Act to justify its program -- enshrining it in law. Lawmakers sound off Metadata is all the information surrounding a call, including the caller's number, the receiver's number, the time and location of the call, and how long it lasted -- basically, everything except for the audio of the call itself.

And the NSA collects the metadata of millions of Americans without those citizens' knowledge and without a warrant specifically targeting individuals suspected of wrongdoing.

See a Problem?

OK, but how much can the NSA actually learn without listening in to the call? The NSA can actually piece together quite a bit about a person by analyzing phone metadata information that a surveillance target's family might not even know.

Repeated calls to a cardiologist could suggest a heart condition. Repeated late night calls between two employees could suggest a romantic relationship. That is a lot private information," explained Sen. And while NSA agents likely aren't spending their days poring over the metadata of Americans who aren't suspected of any terrorist activity, the agency does store the data for five years and retains easy access to the trove of information.

The government can petition the FISA court -- a secret court spawned out of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- for a warrant to collect "any tangible things" to investigate terrorism or foreign spies. Leading the secret FISA court: If the government can credibly show that to the court's 11 judges, it gets a secret warrant that can force companies, such as Verizon, to hand over private information.

And the recipient of the warrant is barred from discussing the warrant with anyone, due to national security concerns. The Patriot Act stresses that the government can only request a warrant to obtain information that is "relevant to an ongoing investigation against international terrorism. How is the data of millions of Americans "relevant" to terrorism investigations? The Bush administration argued in that the metadata analysis program could only be successful if the government could collect and store the data of millions of Americans, even though it conceded "the vast majority of data collected will not be terrorist-related.

NSA data collection is illegal. NSA data collection is illegal All of the metadata collected is thus relevant, because the success of this investigative tool depends on bulk collection," the administration argued. That argument served as the justification for subsequent FISA court decisions approving warrants to collect customer data from various phone companies -- warrants that need to be renewed every 60 or 90 days.

Rand Paul seizes political moment with NSA protest. But now Section of the Patriot Act could be going away? And this program would change? But lawmakers who want changes to the program still have a tough slog ahead of them. Sensenbrenner, the lead author of the Patriot Act, was quick to condemn the FISA court's interpretation of the law once Snowden revealed the extent of the dragnet surveillance, calling the practice "based on a blatant misreading of the law. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, have since led the charge to reform the Patriot Act and their efforts have gained steam in recent months, with the USA Freedom Act overwhelmingly passing the House earlier this month in a vote.

The reform bill would keep the government from collecting telephone metadata of millions of Americans, instead requiring the NSA to get a warrant from the FISA court to collect data on a specific individual from telecommunications companies. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who want to reauthorize the Patriot Act for five years without any reforms. And if the Senate can't reach an agreement to extend the Patriot Act in some way, chunks of the law would sunset on June 1.

Section , which authorizes the bulk metadata collection program, would sunset. But two other sections of the Patriot Act would also expire: The first allows law enforcement to use the national security apparatus to go after suspected terrorists who may not be affiliated with a terrorist group, but share terrorist ideology and aims. That's a particular concern for law enforcement officials today as terrorist groups like ISIS are using social media to inspire individuals to carry out attacks in the U. The FBI would also lose the ability to apply for new roving wiretaps to pursue suspected terrorists, a common procedure used in other criminal investigations that allows officials to wiretap additional phones linked to a suspect without requesting a new warrant.

IP-адрес данного ресурса заблокирован в соответствии с действующим законодательством.

But counterterrorism officials already conducting investigations wouldn't be completely hamstrung. A provision in the Patriot Act would allow officials to use these tools in investigations that were started before the June 1 sunset date. Why are some lawmakers so opposed to reforming the Patriot Act?

They cite the growing terror threats the U.

Everything you need to know about the Patriot Act debate

To throw away a key tool at a time of such heightened concern would be foolish, opponents say. McCain and others argue that the U. And fellow Republican Sen. Give control of drone program to Pentagon. Give control of drone program to Pentagon The Republican opponents of reform are toeing the line set out by Burr, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.

Several Republican lawmakers -- including Graham and Sen. Terrorism is deadly serious. Why do some lawmakers want us to restrict any of our intelligence-gathering capabilities? Reformers insist their opponents are fear-mongering when there's actually little to fear from reforming domestic surveillance. The government hasn't been able to provide any examples where the NSA's bulk data collection played a key role in thwarting a terror plot. And multiple reviews of the program by groups and individuals with access to classified information have concluded the program isn't as much of a boon to national security as the staunchest defenders of the program suggest.

A presidential review group convened to review NSA surveillance in the wake of the Snowden revelations concluded "the information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of Section telephony meta-data was not essential to preventing attacks and could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional Section orders.

Rand Paul tries to derail Patriot Act renewal Put another way, the NSA doesn't need to pull telephone metadata on millions of Americans to protect U. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency within the executive branch, also couldn't find "a single instance involving a threat to the U. Richard Clarke, a former senior White House counterterrorism adviser to Republican and Democratic presidents who served on Obama's NSA review group, said "there's no way that you can claim that there's a single terrorist act that was prevented because of the telephony metadata collection program.

But their positions are not analytically derived or fact-based. How are supporters of reform pushing back against national security concerns? Let's leave it to their own words. Here are several pro-reform lawmakers who sat down for interviews with CNN. Hayden on legality of NSA surveillance In fact, we believe this bill strengthens both," he said. He noted that the bill would strengthen some provisions of the Patriot Act, ensuring, for example, that there is no lapse in surveillance between different agencies when a potential terrorist enters the U. Mike Lee, the Republican from Utah who is sponsoring the USA Freedom Act in his chamber, is leaning his arguments on constitutional concerns and trust in government as he looks to sway conservatives.

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Return to Book Page. Living Under The Patriot Act: Educating A Society by Paul A. Educating A Society really liked it 4. The book is a comprehensive look at the Patriot Act, the most power tool in the war on terror today. The book is the product of three years of research and gives important information for people on both sides of this political issue. The books covers the creation of the original and the highly contentious renewal.

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