[Peace-discuss] There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says

[Rohn Koester]

"There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says"
You may think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to
spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says it’s worse than you’ve
heard.
Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the
surveillance law as early as Thursday. But Wyden says that what Congress
will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the
Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse,
there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to
gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a “dragnet” for massive amounts of
information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection
efforts much differently.
[...]
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.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/secret-patriot-act/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
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