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Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, in his office in Washington, D.C. Wyden strenuously objects to extending the U.S. Patriot Act, calling the bulk collection of telephone records an infringement upon liberty and ineffectual as an intelligence-gathering tool.
(AP Photo)
Stranger things have happened in Congress than displayed on Wednesday by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat. He crossed party lines to help out Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican and presidential hopeful who was conducting a filibuster-like rant against renewal of the Patriot Act. The issue: secret bulk collections of telephone metadata from millions of Americans. The argument by both Paul and Wyden: Stop it. The practice deprives Americans of their liberties while doing next to nothing to thwart terrorism.
This is not a new position for Wyden. As a longtime member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he was for years forced to squelch his objections by maintaining silence about the classified program until Edward Snowden scandalized the National Security Agency in making public its reach into the lives of unsuspecting citizens. Key provisions in the Patriot Act expire in June, however, and what's new is the debate surrounding the act's diminished continuance or replacement by a House-passed bill that would redefine intelligence-gathering and bring to a halt bulk collections. Wyden, for the better, has thrown himself into the middle of things and placed himself on the high side of the debate as a champion of privacy.
He and Paul correctly fight to protect the once-taken-for-granted ability of Americans to trust that when they turn in for the night, nobody's snooping. "The government knows where you're calling from," Wyden told the editorial board of The Oregonian/OregonLive on Wednesday, right down to the house or apartment in which you have a telephone land line. "So if you call your psychiatrist, say, three times, twice after midnight, (the snoopers) don't really need to hear the call" to make troubling inferences. Wyden argues it's nobody's business.
But Wyden's strongest argument - and the one that deserves to be heard by his colleagues - centers on the ineffectuality of bulk metadata collections as a tool of counter-terrorism. "It's not making us any safer," he says of the practice, noting that the nation's "strongest individuals" in the spy arts have said so.
They did, though to apparently deaf ears in the Senate. An extensive 2013 examination by President Obama's "Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies" states: "The information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of section 215 telephony metadata was not essential to preventing attacks...." Section 215 is that part of the Patriot Act from which intelligence officers had decided - wrongly and illegally, a federal court recently found - that the act authorized bulk collections. Among the authors of the White House report? Richard Clarke, the nation's former coordinator for infrastructure protection and counter-terrorism efforts; and Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency who went on to serve twice as the agency's acting director, as recently as 2013.
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It would be wrong to infer Wyden is blase about escalating dangers posed by terrorists. In the time since Snowden's illegal release of NSA records, terror incidents have beset cities and countries here and around the globe - stoking fear among some members of the Senate who argue the NSA should continue its bulk collections or even enjoy an expansion of its snooping capacities. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, another Kentucky Republican, minimally favors extending the Patriot Act's provisions at least a few months beyond June rather than see an end to bulk collections, as called for in the House bill. Hence Paul's filibuster-like effort and Wyden's aisle-hop to join him.
"Oregonians are clear with me," Wyden told the editorial board. "They want to know that we're making efforts at making them safer while protecting their liberty. And (the Patriot Act) doesn't do it."
Several things could happen. If Congress does nothing, Section 215 and two other sections of the Patriot Act will expire, ending bulk collections. Alternatively, the Senate could vote to extend the full provisions of the Patriot Act for an unspecified amount of time, citing heightened fear of terrorism and risking a federal court order that would halt bulk collections, already declared illegal. Or the Senate could embrace the House bill, ending bulk collections and establishing another framework for protecting national security.
It seems a no-brainer to bring an end to the NSA's misapplication of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. But as things go in Congress, it could take memorable hours of plumage by senators pitting security against liberty, cameras rolling. It's nothing Ben Franklin, whom Wyden and Paul cite as a guide, wouldn't have understood. Wyden simply steps out in the name of his Oregon constituency - and well across party lines - to wisely duke it out with peers who might, for reasons that are emotionally appealing but rationally indefensible, trade in fearmongering.