Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul might well be mainlining throat lozenges
today after Wednesday's marathon quasi-filibuster opposing the Patriot
Act.
Paul spoke for more than 11 hours against the law,
highlighting Section 215 of the act, which sunsets June 1 unless
Congress renews it. Section 215 authorizes the government — with an
order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — to collect
"tangible things" including business records. Its most controversial
application has been in collecting and storing Americans' phone-dialing
records, known as metadata.
Paul's opposition to renewing Section
215 echoes one of today's columnists, who argues Uncle Sam is wrong to
"seek and peek" without solid justification.
Others favor
extension. To that end, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr introduced a bill that
continues Section 215 until 2020.
Likewise, today's other columnist argues that Section 215 is essential to America's counterterrorism strategy.
Coincidentally,
a review issued Thursday by the Justice Department's Inspector General
noted the FBI's surging use of Section 215 to gather "hard copy
reproductions of business ledgers and receipts to gigabytes of metadata
and other electronic information." The FBI's proclivity for the tool
owes, in part, the report says, to a lower legal bar for its use.
By the numbers
•1952: The year a President Harry Truman order established the National Security Agency.
•60:
The percentage of Americans in an April ACLU poll who agree the Patriot
Act should be overhauled "to limit government surveillance and protect
Americans' privacy."
•34: The percentage of Americans in the same poll who feel the Patriot Act is perfect as is for protecting America.