In his weekly column, “Defeat
of USA FREEDOM Act is a Victory for Freedom,” former Rep. Ron
Paul (R-Tex.) makes it clear that the he is happy that the USA
FREEDOM Act was blocked last week from further consideration in the
U.S. Senate. Why? Because he thinks the bill was too weak a reform
of the domestic spying and that it extended the sunset perios for
three provisions of the misbegotten PATRIOT ACT until 2017. This is
basically the same position that his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
took when he voted against opening up debate on the bill and
allowing the process of trying to amend it to go forward.
Most of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act have been made
permanent, but three still have to be periodically reapproved by
Congress. Those provisions permit (1) government surveillance of
“lone wolf” terrorists who are not associated with any known
terrorist group; permit the government to obtain roving wire taps
without having to identify either a specific subject or specific
device to be monitored; and (3) obtain business records which has
been vastly reinterpreted by the NSA and other intelligence
agencies to permit the government to obtain, among other things,
the telephone meta-data of every American citizen.
These provisions are supposed to expire on June 1, 2015, and the
USA FREEDOM Act would have extended them until 2017.
As noted in my column last week, “USA
FREEDOM Act and Rand Paul,” the lone wolf provision has
apparently never been used, and agencies using the roving wiretap
have always identified a specific target. The USA FREEDOM Act
sought to limit the NSA and other agencies abuse of meta-data by
requiring narrow, specific searches through telephone company
databases. Most privacy advocacy groups thought that reform was not
enough, but that it would have been a step toward reining in
domestic spying. In addition, many privacy advocates hoped that the
bill might be strengthened through amendments as the Senate debated
it.
The Pauls are evidently hoping that the approaching expiration
of all three provisions in June will spark a debate that ends up
with Congress imposing even stronger limits on domestic
surveillance. Ron Paul writes:
With the failure of the FREEDOM Act to move ahead in the Senate
last week, several of the most egregious sections of the PATRIOT
Act are set to sunset next June absent a new authorization.
Congress will no doubt be under great pressure to extend these
measures. We must do our very best to make sure they are
unsuccessful!
Yes, we must. But as I argued in my column, I worry that when
June comes around Paul may end up regretting the day he allowed the
perfect to get in the way of the merely better. We’ll know in six
months.
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