Revelation of Surveillance of U.S. Citizens Spurs Patriot Act Defeat

Posted on December 16, 2005

The New York Times reported today that President Bush personally authorized spying on U.S. citizens without any warrant or evidence of wrongdoing. Nearly a dozen officials spoke to the Times' reporters on condition of anonymity because they were so concerned that the spying on U.S. citizens was illegal. These aren't terror suspects or members of Al-Qaeda. These are just average, American citizens accused of no crime.

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.
"This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches."
Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight.

This story reverberated around Washington, D.C. today and was a factor in the Senate's rejection of the extension of the Patriot Act today. Unable to muster the 60 votes necessary to stop a filibuster, the Senators who were pushing to renew the widely-criticized law went down in defeat, 52-47.

The Patriot Act was rushed into law after 9/11 when everyone was terrified. Most congressmen admitted that they didn't read the bill: the document is as big as a phonebook, yet was ready to go within days after the tragedy. Most of the senators who voted against renewing the Patriot Act suggested that Congress take its time and carefully review the voluminous law to ensure that the rights of innocent Americans are protected. Which is exactly what should have been done before it was passed into law.