Sen. Udall Calls for Reopening the Patriot Act

Everyone cross your fingers! Senator Udall is trying to get the Patriot Act reopened. And I say Bravo!

Sen. Udall Calls for Reopening the Patriot Act

Sen. Mark Udall, who's long called for greater transparency in how the government collects data on Americans, said Sunday the law allowing that monitoring should be reopened for debate after new disclosures about the scope of the intelligence community's snooping.

"It concerns me particularly because Americans didn't know this. That's why I'm calling for a reopening of the Patriot Act, I'm calling for a wholesome debate across the country," Udall, a Colorado Democrat, said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"Maybe Americans think this is OK, but I think the line has been drawn too far towards 'We're going to invade your privacy,' versus 'We're going to respect your privacy,' " he told chief political correspondent Candy Crowley

Some of you may or may not remember this, But Senator Udal was the one who made this somewhat famous comment:

Last year, we filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for records about the government's use and interpretation of one of the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions: Section 215. Some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee had suggested that the provision was being abused. "When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act," Colorado Sen. Mark Udall said, "they will be stunned and they will be angry."

Sens. Wyden and Udall Weigh in on ACLU Patriot Act FOIA Case

Also, this afternoon, Sen. Udall and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden sent a letter to the attorney general: please visit the link to read more of the letter and to read the article.

.....We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted section 215 of the Patriot Act. As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn't know what its government thinks the law says. Etc....

reply to post by elouina


Good move, Colorado showing leadership once again...

All that needs to happen here is a simple up-down vote on whether or not congress people approve of this whole program. No side stepping, no BS, lets have the debate we need to have, lets get the relevant data out there, and get every one on the record as to whether they are okay with this program with the facts on the table.

What needs to happen since it is relatively cooled down as compared when the act was rushed through and shoved down congress's throats is that new legislation accomplishing the security goals needs to be formulated and it needs to have the proper time allotted for everything to be argued and debated first, congress will need enough time to properly review, read and understand the legislation and find out what parts could be abused or widely interpreted that might encroach on personal privacy and freedoms.

The way the original act was passed was not a great way to operate, most of the provisions of how it worked were discovered after the fact, which makes any argument now have much less potency to reverse or revise it.

I think everyone should write their congressman or senator, to ask that the act be reviewed without the rushing and sense of the the world will end if it doesn't get approved in 48 hours.

Good to hear. Maybe this time they can make sure nothing within it violates our rights. Then they can sell that new spy building in Utah and pay off some of our debt.

reply to post by tridentblue


Well this is how our country was supposed to work in the first place. Udall seems to feel that this surveillance is overkill and totally not needed. And that a "top secret" interpretation of the Patriot Act was totally wrong. And I think he is 100% correct.

But to add to this, I feel that they would have done this even without the Patriot Act. I think they are misinterpreting it as an excuse now that they have been caught.

reply to post by elouina


What good will any of this do when your "sending a letter to holder"? He's going to sit there, with this stupid look on his face, and say "I don't remember", "I don't know", "I wasn't informed" - or simply refuse to respond.

Originally posted by Happy1
reply to post by elouina

 

What good will any of this do when your "sending a letter to holder"? He's going to sit there, with this stupid look on his face, and say "I don't remember", "I don't know", "I wasn't informed" - or simply refuse to respond.

Good point

Holder is under orders to lie and stonewall to the death, just like the rest of our out-of-control Executive Branch (I single out the Executive, but it's not really much better in the other two branches).

Some months ago I started pointing out the Wired Magazine article about the Utah Data Center to a number of people. I pointed out the majorly gigantic data capacity, and I challenged them to tell me what the hell they thought all that computer power and capacity was for. Their eyes glazed over, and they went about their business without any comment. Their overwhelming Normalcy Bias told them not to worry about it; the NSA is in the business of collecting data--it was for our own protection, for God's sake.

Now ... NOW they're starting to open their eyes. Now they want to read the details. I've printed that article out about a half-dozen times lately, and expect I'll be printing more copies.

Similarly, in the past few days I've noticed a number of newspaper and magazine articles and bloggers opening with words along the lines of: "We owe the conspiracy theorists an apology...."

Damn right you do!

Senator Sensenbrenner wrote the PA and will be on Hannity in one minute.

This almost makes up for Sen Udall wanting to build a drone test facility in Colorado... Almost.

reply to post by elouina


I have to wonder if all of this is planned. Maybe just maybe we are all being lead by the nose.



Let's be honest people until we can longer eat or watch TV TPTB can do whatever they want. People will complain and such until the next big story is aired.



Nothing will change. We will slowly slip into tyranny. Jefferson was right.........smart man.

reply to post by elouina


I would guess the distinguished gentleman from Colorado will be getting an anthrax letter before too long. You all remember the last time...right? Leahy and Dascle got the "real" anthrax letters. Next think you know they are falling all over themselves in favor of the Patriot Act.

Geez, how far we have come.

reply to post by SubTruth


I can't say I disagree.

It's unreasonable to expect the very system that created this problem to correct itself.