Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) quickly ushered in the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the September 2001 terror attacks. But the author of the act, which greatly expanded the government's spy powers, says the National Security Agency is abusing that law by collecting records of all telephone calls in the United States.
While it's not the first time the Republican has accused the NSA of misusing the act to collect the calling data, it's the first time he's invoked his status as a member of the legislative branch to file a court document in a bid to convince the judicial branch to put a halt to the spying.
"I stand by the Patriot Act and support the specific targeting of terrorists by our government, but the proper balance has not been struck between civil rights and American security," Sensenbrenner said in a statement. "A large, intrusive government -- however benevolent it claims to be -- is not immune from the simple truth that centralized power threatens liberty. Americans are increasingly wary that Washington is violating the privacy rights guaranteed to us by the Fourth Amendment."
The snooping first came to public light in June when NSA leaker Edward Snowden provided the Guardian newspaper with a classified court opinion requiring Verizon to provide the National Security Agency the phone numbers of both parties involved in all calls, the international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number for mobile callers, calling card numbers used in the call, and the time and duration of the calls. The government confirmed the authenticity of the document, and lawmakers have subsequently said other secret orders involve the nation's carriers in a program that began shortly after the Patriot Act was passed.
One of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act — Section 215 — allows the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize broad warrants for most any type of "tangible" records, including those held by banks, doctors and phone companies.
Under the Patriot Act, the government only needs to show that the information is "relevant" to an authorized investigation. No connection to a terrorist or spy is required.
But Sensenbrenner, who is being represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, never thought every telephone call would become relevant to an investigation. He told that to a federal judge Wednesday via a friend-of-the-court brief in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, writing the government has advanced a "dangerous version of 'relevance.'" The civil rights group, meanwhile, claims the program -- "one of the largest surveillance efforts ever launched by a democratic government" -- is a fundamental breach of Americans' constitutional rights.
But the President Barack Obama administration sees it another way.
The administration claims the wholesale vacuuming of all phone-call metadata in the United States is in the "public interest," does not breach the constitutional rights of Americans and cannot be challenged in a court of law.
"… the alleged metadata program is fully consistent with the Fourth Amendment. Most fundamentally, the program does not involve 'searches' of plaintiffs' persons or effects, because the collection of telephony metadata from the business records of a third-party telephone service provider, without collecting the contents of plaintiffs' communications, implicates no 'legitimate expectation of privacy' that is protected by the Constitution," (.pdf) David S. Jones, an assistant United States attorney, wrote to U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley, the New York judge presiding over the litigation.
A hearing in the case is tentatively set for November.
