Patriot Act author says Verizon snooping violates the law

This is very interesting and very important, it could even mean an end of some of the provisions within the Patriot Act.

The author of the "infamous Patriot Act" Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr, is telling publicly that the Patriot Act has been abused.

The congressman who wrote the Patriot Act said he never intended for the snooping law to be used to grab millions of records in a government fishing expedition like the secret court-approved Verizon phone-records search revealed in news reports this week.

Stung by the Verizon revelations, a number of lawmakers came forward Thursday to say they never intended the laws they wrote following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to be used to go after records as broadly as the Obama administration appears to be doing.

This could mean one thing, that congress will have not other way to get off the mess of the revelation of Obama snooping on Americans but with a congress hearing and perhaps a change on some provisions of the Patriot Act.

Now what all this means? when is already been questioned how legal the Patriot act really is.

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., who was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks and wrote the Patriot Act, said using a secret court to gain access to phone records without a subpoena was “excessive and un-American.”

“I do not believe the released [secret court] order is consistent with the requirements of the Patriot Act,” Mr. Sensenbrenner wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. “How could the phone records of so many innocent Americans be relevant to an authorized investigation as required by the act?”

I am speechless, is this political manipulation or the danger of abuses of the Patriot act to data mining millions of Americans is really something that we need to be more than just concern about it.

Is about to get very hot for the Obama tadministration.

This issue is not going to go away.

www.washingtontimes.com...

reply to post by marg6043


I think that James Sensenbrenner Jr. is Full Of It.

The Patriot act was Designed as a Vehicle for the Government to Rerwrite and Legally Violate Civil Liberties and Laws as they saw fit. Especially when they could justify it by calling everything a National Security Issue.

He knew what is was all about when he formulated it. Surely he understands the legalese in which it was written. I would hope so anyway, else he would have had no business writing it.

reply to post by ShadellacZumbrum


That is what I find very interesting that after 12 years he comes forward I guess the "rigth time" to tell that the Partiot act is been abused when is many instances that the issue has been taken in front of congress (about every time is to be extended) to show how much is been abused.

So far the congress and the courts has side it with its validity.

But then again is more to it, as it seems that private interest is written all over when the exention of the Patriot act is lobbyed

Since first taking office in 2009, the Obama administration has repeatedly extended the USA PATRIOT Act, including the overbroad section 215 cited as the basis for the FBI surveillance approved by the secret order disclosed by the Guardian. In light of Congress’ recent decision to extend the law permitting even worse abuses by the NSA for another five years, and the Supreme Court’s outrageous decision in Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l turning a blind eye to dragnet domestic surveillance, the document is also a clarion call for both mass outrage and immediate congressional action for long overdue sunlight at the National Security Agency

www.constitutioncampaign.org...

The government is not the only one getting our private information thanks to the Patriot act but also private interest with lost of money investing in it.

Yes, Americans, and the rest of the worlds, for that matter, civil liberties have been totally sodomized since 9/11. And all the god fearing citizens will say, "if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about".

I just saw a video about not talking to the police where the lawyer says that the federal government doesn't even know how many laws it has! 27,000 pages. Chances are you have already broken a law today... "better get lawyer son, better get a REAL good one" (nick cave and the bad seeds).

This IS hell!

reply to post by MindpurelyMind


I agree, laws in America are like toilet paper and at the same time they are abused depending of the interest that private money has invested on them.

Along with Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), Sen. Wyden has suggested in his capacity as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that Americans would be outraged if we knew about secret government interpretations of the PATRIOT Act’s controversial Section 215 authority. The law is bad enough without being contorted to allow surveillance even beyond its meager limits, but that’s exactly what the document leaked to the Guardian demonstrates: a single wiretap order allowing the FBI to spy on millions of law-abiding Americans at once, without even a pretense of the individualized suspicion long required by the Constitution.

From the source,

The surveillance and the different agencies that are using the Patriot Act Section 215 are running lose and their interpretation varies depending what they are after be personal or national, is been warnings about how lose this agencies are when it comes on spying on Americans, but it seems that the govenrment have better things to do that controlling the over out of control govenrment that seems to be plaguing the Obama administration.

You know the scary part.....?

This is a place where people exist who think Guam might tip right over like a row boat in a storm from too many US troops on it.

Stupid isn't the exception in Congress. It's a way of life, as it would seem sometimes. I think money might seek stupid to serve it by design. Anyway, they really could have been so simple minded as to believe it wouldn't reach these levels of abuse.

It's scary by how many other things both high and low profile, they have passed with equal levels of pure naive and dumb.

Better late than never to get with the program but retirement and departure from the public eye all together wouldn't be the worst way I can think of showing regret for what they helped make. They're all rich enough, I'm sure.

If we could now just get Sensenbrenner to cite by chapter and verse
exactly where the violations exist- so we could slap together a band
aid for that blown off arm...you know Marg,
the one that used to hold the scales!

The white house can not claim ignorance, neither congress or the house I am sure that as we speak all the crock involved are talking to their lawyers, but as usual is hard to get any justice in this country when even the courts are complicit on this corruption and abuse of power.

Who is protecting us?

We have people and organizations that are looking for our best interest as citizens and that they see how our constitutional rights has been eroded, side stepped and crap over.

Whistleblowers and transparency

The government makes a big issue against their now mortal enemies, the whistleblowers we all know how the presient administration is so afraid of them and with good reason.

But when the higher courts in the nation comes around and helps the crocks supporting what they do what else we have.

First what little we do know about the NSA’s program is mostly gleaned from government whistleblowers, courageous individuals who have designed their careers to inform the public about secret abuses of our rights.

Many of them have faced prosecution, at unprecedented levels under the Obama administration, making even the Nixon administration look transparent by comparison. But the crackdown on whistleblowers is what enables abuses like the NSA’s to happen in the first place.

And keep your eyes open for whatever investigation the Justice Department will launch into this leak, compounding its assault on the Associated Press with a witch hunt to uncover the source of the leak to the Guardian.

What repercussions will the whistle blowers will endure this time with such big news and mess they have created for the status Quo? it will be repercussions but this time the crocks knows that the Whistle blowers have more dirt that they can imagine.

The constitutional standing doctrine articulated by the Supreme Court in Clapper vs. Amnesty International eviscerates judicial review, and enshrined the principle that the executive branch can commit any abuse under the sun, yet evade judicial review, as long as it does so in secret. The decision creates perverse incentives and could serve as a cornerstone in the further entrenchment of executive power going forward.

Similarly, the sheer breadth of the leaked order authorizing FBI surveillance confirms the inadequacy of secret courts. Courts exist to enforce our rights in the face of government abuses. That’s one of the central geniuses of the founding fathers and the system of checks and balances they constructed.

Now the courts are also in the hot seat and they know it, because obviously the secret courts will be exposed and we will know whom they are serving.

We know now that under the constitution courts are here to protect the citizens from government and they are not doing their job.

The leaks will keep coming and is up to us the citizens to hold accountable our govenrment and those involved from the corruption, we don't America the free will be no more.

double post

reply to post by derfreebie


Trust me, is going to get worst, this time is not way that they will silence the whistle blowers they are in an attack mode of retaliation against Obama.

Is more coming, the Obama administration, the crocks running rampant crapping on our rights and liberties have a lot to answer because they know that while the are watching us, is many watching them.

You know how I know he's lying....he's a politician.

reply to post by Ghost375


He is and you are right, but what he is doing is self incriminating himself while thinking that putting the blame of the crap that he and others help create and pass to this administration will exonerate him when the big inquiry comes, I am so sure that Mr. Patriot Act co author is so afraid of what is coming that, this is the reason he is talking now after 12 years of the anti Patriot act.

reply to post by marg6043


Well, lets hope to see more of the old guard come to their senses,
If I see McCain one more time with Graham try and stalwart, and hem
and haw and defend Obama or protect him, I am going to get the flu.

McCain, of all people, what is he planning on, a Republican Heaven?

reply to post by burntheships


Rumer has it McCain was very helpfull to the folks on the othe side of the aisle in Viet Nam too...

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I would bet the bill was actually written by lobyists for those that benefit from the bill the most...
not the selected representative(s) who take the "credit"

reply to post by Danbones


Yes, I read about that, and did you know about Hanoy Jane?
Thats hard to picture in my mind.

Obama again huh? The man has demonstrated many times he will abuse power without a care at the cost to others. I'm telling you folks he's a dictator and no one is listening. He is giving off warning signs and no one is paying attention and those warnings signs are his frequent and willfull abuse of powers.

Sadly, now rather than taking possibility for what the corruption has done to our nations and our rights as citizens, is going after the Leaks for braking national laws? that their constiutionality are questinable.

What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the spying was on millions and millions of Americans, what part this crocks do not get!, millions and millions of Americans over extending their powers, violating our 4tAmendmentsts and this have nothing to do with terrorist, this people are making me angry, because they truly believe we are dumb and stupid

People needs to be angry.