I wrote most of the Wikipedia article on the USA Patriot Act many years ago when I was deeply involved in Wikipedia. I read the entire Act and chased down every regulation, part of the U.S. Code that was modified and tried to write a balanced explanation of the controversies surrounding it.
I wrote so much material that I wrote seperate articles on each of the sections of the Act. I recommend reading the bit on section 215 to understand what it entails:
The talking points that keep coming up in discussions about reform center on metadata and phone records. This is only a small part of the story and I wish groups like EFF would do a better job publicizing the rest of what Snowden disclosed. And the pro-liberty talking heads feel the need to tell us everyday that metadata matters and surveillance is bad which hampers their ability to ever get any other message into the discussion.
Also regarding metadata, if we don't even have a definition of what it is, that's quite worrying. For instance, you could take my comment, run it through an NLP summarizer, AI sentiment analysis, etc (along with cross-referencing back to everything else I've ever written and analyzing that). I.e., they could be generating their own metadata which is basically the data, but more useful.
I wouldn't be surprised if metadata is construed to mean that it's the actual text/content since it's metadata to other data (just depends on your frame of reference).
Do you realize in your own comment, you focused the entire thing on metadata and phone records, without saying what the other (implied) larger part to the story is?
If it's not just all about metadata and phone records, then what is it?
The irony is not lost on me, but at least my voice in the debate doesn't really matter (I'm more concerned about people on the Senate floor, TV, radio, etc). For what it's worth, I replied elsewhere in this thread with a summary of the bigger problem as I see it.
First, the metadata is probably more interesting in most cases. Being able to map usage patterns (from the timestamp) and relationships (from the src/dst metadata) is an incredible power. This is why I am utterly amazed how with how little attention COTRAVELER has gotten. Even without section 215/etc, just letting the phone company construct a surprisingly accurate map of your life is far too tempting a power. All because you carry a transponder in your pocket.
As for the actual text, you have to pay attention to the word-games the NSA plays. The NSA has stated several times that they only record "foreign" communication. Leaked documents indicated the record the full-take of several countries (the Bahamas, etc). The trick was confirmed by Snowden explicitly in his interview with John Oliver (and hinted previously), this is referring to the wire, not the people at each end. If you data goes is routed outside of the USA, they record it. This suggests an explanation for those strange BGP attacks a while back, where all traffic to places like google.com was routed through various remote countries.
The NSA's "upstream collection" program involves copying entire datastreams (actual content) from internet hubs across America. The EFF mentions it on their main "NSA Spying" page here, https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying.
Yes, agreed. Reading the Patriot Act, in light of Snowden disclosures, makes it easy to see how they justify collecting all content from every American.
The USA Freedom Act re-authorizes the Patriot Act as is with the exception that in many cases specific selectors are needed for surveillance (and I'm sure a CSV of 300 million SSNs or millions of IP addresses would do).
Below are the sections that would expire unless the USA Freedom Act passes or they re-up the Patriot Act.
Section 201 -- Wiretapping in terrorism cases. This added crimes to the list of when wiretapping may be done. It's used to target journalists, activists, or anyone else who can be suspected of "providing material support to terrorists".
Section 202 -- Wiretapping in computer fraud and abuse felony cases. Used to harass and intimidate whistleblowers, such as Drake.
Section 203(b) -- Sharing wiretap information. Enables parallel reconstruction and lets all federal agencies share in the surveillance.
Section 203(d) -- Sharing foreign intelligence information. Like the above section but lets intel be shared with local officials. This is how you end up with local police mining Facebook chats for Occupy Wallstreet plans.
Section 204 -- FISA pen register/trap and trace exceptions. Lets NSA tap into the internet backbone. Justification for implanting malware into Xcode, cell phones, routers, etc.
Section 206 -- FISA roving wiretaps. General search warrants for companies, facilities, etc (and their millions of customers/employees/students/users).
Section 209 -- Seizure of voicemail messages pursuant to warrants. Lets voicemail content be harvested as easily as e-mail and internet traffic.
Section 212 -- Emergency disclosure of electronic surveillance. Immunity to internet/phone companies for helping run the surveillance state.
Section 214 -- FISA pen register/trap and trace authority. Lets all internet, phone lines, and devices be tapped, including inside the US.
Section 215 -- FISA access to tangible items. Like the above section but compels companies to assist in the surveillance.
Section 217 -- Interception of computer trespasser communications. Like the above section but it explicitly authorizes collecting full content.
Section 218 -- Purpose for FISA orders. Declares every American subject to surveillance, whether for petty crime, serious crime, terrorism, pre-crime, or juicy gossip.
Section 220 -- Nationwide service of search warrants for electronic evidence. Ensures that a few judges near D.C. can rubberstamp paperwork and have their orders apply anywhere in the country.
Section 223 -- Civil liability and discipline for privacy violations. This sections suggests that government liability for surveillance sunsets too.
Section 225 -- Provider immunity for FISA wiretap assistance. Immunity for all companies helping run the surveillance state.
... And in case that's not enough to go full Orwell, there's also the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which is also re-authorized in the USA Freedom Act.
I'd be ok with us throwing out every bit of law enacted Sept 2001 and after.
Then closely re-examining these one by one and put back in, I'd bet not 10% of it makes sense to do in a non-fear induced populace.
But the problem is, once you give up freedom easily, it is very difficult to get back if ever.
To help fix this we could do a few things:
- There should at least be a 2 year window for any terrorism law where there is no possibility of renewal after the event. A new bill covering the same would need to be in review for 2 years.
- If we want law that sticks without horrible details, we need to remove fast tracking. Bills about freedoms should be public and in discussion for years.
- Bills should also only be named SB[number] and HB[number] and no marketing / 'freedom' propagandized bill titles.
The real patriot act would be repealing the Patriot Act. Then writing a new one with a numeric code, that has to be discussed on the details of that bill, not the name. The bill would have an automatic 2 year expiration with no chance of renewal, and then this debate is brought up every 2 years. This needs to be an issue in every election.
These are just short term hacks. The problems we are dealing with are third or fourth order consequences of the size of the defense budget.
These issues will disappear if budgets shrink or get reallocated towards "peace" goals rather than "defense" goals.
I don't like the word reform. I think the correct word is Repeal.
"Reforming" by bandaging over is not sufficient.
These "reform" bills can also be very long and end up containing things that make things works.
A repeal bill could be extremely short and succinct, sufficient for everyone to read it.
The PATRIOT ACT should never have been passed, and that it has persisted for so long, as far as I'm concerned, is proof positive that our government is a criminal enterprise. (IT's not following the constitution.)
Many liberals and conservatives over the years have told me that government works, that democracy works.
Well, the PATRIOT act is my refutation of that claim. IF you believe that democracy works, then it's time for you to work to really change things.
Excuse me for the "get off of my lawn" bit here- but when I was a kid the country really was different, it really was a lot more free. It's hard for people in their 20s to see it now because of the perspective of age, but if things continue in 20 years you'll be able to see it.
If you want to repeal it, fine. But what precisely do you want to repeal?
You really want to repeal section 215 of the Act. The Patriot Act covers a lot of uncontroversial ground - if you repeal the entire Act it will cause utter chaos and there will be side effects most people don't want or expect.
The problem IMO is not the Act. That had flaws which have been remedied by the courts over the years. The issue is how agencies like the NSA are interpreting the laws and making up secretive (!!) legal fictions to justify the way they do things... in secret. And the FISC is too secretive and willing to rubber stamp the secret requests of the government, leaving little or no opportunity for public scrutiny.
But you see, that's a problem with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (aka FISA), which was enacted after the Church Commission found egregious violations of civil liberties in the 60s and 70s. The Patriot Act amended this law, but the structural problems exist even without the USA Patriot Act's amendments, and where even reasonable measures made by the Act have, ironically, been deliberately misinterpreted by government agencies.
You're correct that the FISA needs to be repealed as well, and it's continued existence shows the PATRIOT ACT is not an anomaly. Those egregious violations of human rights need to be prosecuted, not "reformed".
I don't think there's any part of the PATRIOT ACT that is "uncontroversial" the entire thing should god. The claim that it will cause "utter chaos" is kinda silly. We didn't have utter chaos before it was law. IF you think there are bad side effects people don't want, then name them.
Too many people think that government is a good thing and that most of what they do isn't evil, and thus they just give the benefit of the doubt time and time again. Well, you may not be doing that, and that might even be true for the government as a whole, but the PATRIOT ACT does not deserve the benefit of the doubt-- the provisions that are clearly abusive and extremely offensive to the constitution show that none of it deserves the benefit of the doubt.
I looked at the section titles of your wikipedia article on it, and all of them are either criminal acts for government to do or administrative enabling of criminal acts.
What the Church Commission confirmed is what the founders knew, which was that a federal "law enforcement" agency would become the secret police, and that's why they forbade it in the constitution:
The only enumerated power for such enforcement is here:
"To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;"
Everything else, and including everyone involved in propagating these crimes, should be prosecuted. Their crimes are felonies if committed while armed, under USC 18-242.
So yes, repealing the PATRIOT ACT doesn't go far enough, the government has been abusing its powers since nearly the late 1700s.
If you looked at my link and got through it, I congratulate you :-) but we're still talking about only title II of the Patriot Act!
FWIW, I personally don't find anything particularly controversial about title III which deals with money laundering. I don't think concentration accounts should ever be allowed, tightening the rules around identifying foreign beneficial owners and a whole raft of measures were actually very effective and fair.
Title IV had problematic aspects around modifications to the INA, particularly around disallowing the entry of family of designated terrorists from entering the U.S. as I feel that's overly broad and discriminatory. I'm particularly cautious about the mandatory detention provisions, even with the safeguards in place.
Title V was the one that introduced NSLs, but that was deemed unconstitutional do it's a moot point now.
Title VI provided for victims of terrorism, public safety officers and their families. Rolling back these provisions would be pretty bad.
I gotta dash, so can't comment on the other titles, from memory there were some issues, but by and large many of the changes were benign.
That's the problem with the Act - firstly, the name causes suspicion ("Patriotism is the first refuge of a scoundrel"), it was pushed through far too quickly and I doubt any members of Congress read it which is why it has large holes in it, and parts as it was enacted were later deemed unconstitutional.
The good citizens of the United States should really insist on smaller, more focussed bills passed separately in future. And those pushing the bills would be better off skipping cute backronyms like the "USA PATRIOT Act".
> The FBI employs a “classified directive” to define the term “U.S. Person” and that the agency cannot definitively say what information counts as “metadata.”
If you agree this is bullshit, tell your representatives. And vote.
I wrote so much material that I wrote seperate articles on each of the sections of the Act. I recommend reading the bit on section 215 to understand what it entails:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_summary_of_the_Patriot_...