Releases them to everybody. Imagine if youre a woman who has been abused or beaten by her husband, has left him, lives in fear of him finding her and now the registration comes out and says where she lives and that she has a gun or worse yet where she lives and that she doesnt have a gun. Think of our prosecutors and our judges. I know then of them who put bad people away and many of them have concealed carry. Many of them travel to work, the security meets them in the parking lot and they go to work but they worry. Weve had sheriffs and weve had prosecutors killed in kentucky because the criminals were angry they were locked up. We dont want all of our records by the government to be put out there in public for everybody to know where we live and whether we have a gun or not. So you can see why the issue of privacy is not a small issue. It is a big issue, incredibly important to our founding fathers. Some have said its too late, its too late to even get this back. There have been articles written in the last few weeks that say whether the patriot act expires or not, the government will just keep on doing what theyre doing. In fact, there is a provision in the patriot act that says any investigation already begun before the deadline can go on in perpetuity. The other thing is that there are people now writing there was a john nappier thyme, the internet watchdog for this program, who wrote that he believes that the executive order 12333 is really allowing all this bulk collection under what the president says are article 2 authorities. Now, article 2 gives the president , the executive branch, different powers. But these arent unlimited powers. Some think they are. Some say the president has the absolute power when it comes to war. Well, actually article 2 actually comes after article 1 and in article 1 section 8, the president was told that he doesnt get to initiate war. The most basic of powers with regard to war, were not actually given to the president , they were given to congress. What is sad about this, whats going on now is that congress hasnt shown i think sufficient interest in what the executive branch does on a host of things, whether it be regulation,whether it be the enormous bureaucracy but so much power has shifted and gone from congress and wound up in the executive. Its the same way with intelligence. We have Intelligence Committees but the question is are they asking sufficient questions. Now, there are some, senator wyden has been a leader in this and he and i have worked together, but hes really been the leader because hes been on the Intelligence Committee and he has more information really than the rest of us do. But hes at times been hamstrung because once you know information, if its told to you in a classified setting, youre not allowed to talk about it. Sometimes it actually makes sense if you want to speak out not to actually learn through the official channels but read on the internet because if you learn about it through official channels you cant say anything about it even if the government is lying about it. Were talking about an enormous amount of information. Were talking about all of your phone records, all of the time. Now, recently there was some complaint by people in the newspaper and they said, well, the governments really only getting a third of your records, theyre not getting enough of your records. Some want them to get more of your records. The objective evidence shows, though, we really have never gotten anyone independently, not found any terrorist independently of this. But still some people are so fearful theyre like how could we get terrorists, well be overrun with terrorists and isis will be in every drugstore and in every house in america if we dont get rid of the constitution, if we dont let the Fourth Amendment lapse, if we dont just let everybody pass out warrants. Thats what we do under the patriot act. The patriot act allows the police to write their own warrants. This was one of the fundamental separations that we did with the Fourth Amendment. This was probably the most important thing we did, was to separate police power from the judiciary, to have a check and a bam so you check and a balance so you would never get systemic bias, you would never get political or religious or racial bias in your judicial system. We separated these powers. But we now let the police write their own warrants. Its a special form of police the f. B. I. , but they are domestic police. The f. B. I. Is allowed to write their own warrants. These are called National Security letters and they dont have to be signed by a judge. There is no probable cause. If they come into your house there is no ability for you to complain. In fact sometimes they are now coming into our houses without us knowing about it. This is called a sneak and peek warrant. And like Everything Else the government says well be run run overrun with terrorists if we dont let the government quietly sneak into your house when urine when you are gone and put listening devices, search through your papers and read all your stuff while youre gone. You dont have to have probable cause necessarily for these. Its a lower standard. But were letting the f. B. I. Write this without a judge reviewing it. I have a friend who is an f. B. I. Apartment. I play government golf with him. Hes like dont you trust him . I do, i trust him, but i dont trust everybody. Madison said if government were comprised of angels, we wouldnt need laws. Patrick henry said the constitution is about restraining the power of government. It isnt about the vast majority of good people who work in government. Its about preventing the bad apple, its about preventing the one bad person that might get into government and decide to abuse the rights of individuals. Some say, well, the n. S. A. Has never abused anyones rights. That may or may not be true. Theyre giving us the information. We dont get to independently look at the information. Its the same group they saying they werent doing bulk collection of data at all but presuming they are telling us the truth it isnt really the end of the story because the story should be that we dont what allow the abuse of power to happen. As the debate unfolded the first time for the patriot act, something occurred that happens frequently around here. Theres not enough time. Hurry up, hurry up theres not enough time. Its kind of like the debate right now. The patriot act, im not sure unless we insert ourselves at this moment that well have any debate over it. Its been set to expire for three years. Weve known it was coming. And the question is, do we not have enough time because we just dont care enough . Were going to relinquish our rights or constrict our rights through the bill of rights even though we know its coming up and have to do Something Else that occupies all of our time . s editor senator wyden and i have a series of amendments. Our amendments would try to reform some of this. Our amendments would say that n. S. L. s, National Security letters, cant be just signed by the police that they would have to go to a judge. And people argue, well, how would we catch terrorists . The same way we catch other people who are dangerous murders and rapists and anybody in our society. In fact, when you look at the warrant process for criminal warrants, warrants are almost never turned down but just that simple check and balance of having the police call a judge is one of the fundamental aspects of our jurisprudence. We gave it up so quickly. We gave it up so quickly on the heels of 9 11 in the fear. But the thing is when the patriot act came forward most people didnt even read it. There was a committee bill, this and that and there was a lastminute substitution. It was given hours and it was simply passed in fear, in a spate of fear. As we look at what happened at that time, i think we now have the ability to look backwards and say is there another way. When we start with the doctrine that a mans house or a womans house is their castle, it was a very old notion, maybe even dating back to the times of magna carta. Our castle now in our papers are a little bit different now, and the Supreme Court hasnt quite caught up to where we are technologically. Theyre getting there, but this really needs to be debated and discussed at the Supreme Court level. Because the thing is we dont keep our papers in our house anymore. In fact, weve gone to such a Paperless Society that 90 of your paper, or if youre under 30 years old, 100 of your paper is held somewhere else. But the question we have to ask is do you retain a privacy interest in your records . When the phone Company Holds your records, do they have an obligation to keep them private . Do you retain a privacy interest . If the government wants the records from the phone company, should they be allowed to write the name verizon and get all of the records for verizon . I frankly think that if john smith has his phone service with verizon and he is a terrorist, the warrant should say john smith and go to verizon, but its an individualized warrant. I dont think we should have generalized warrants. There are some who want to replace now the bulk collection of records with a different system, where the government doesnt hold the records but the phone Company Holds the records. I am also concerned about this. For one big reason. The recent court case has said now that the patriot act does not justify the collection of records, that its actually illegal under that. Im concerned that since the court is now saying that section 215 doesnt allow bulk collection, that in trying to reform this, whats called the u. S. A. Freedom act, by trying to reform this, we actually will be granting new power to section 215 that the court says is not there. The court is saying that it stands logic on its head to say that relevance means nothing, that everybodys record in the whole country could be relevant. We have even changed over time the investigations, whether or not there is a fullblown investigation, the beginning of an investigation. Who gets to decide or divine what an investigation is . The bottom line is though as we look at this and as we move forward, we have to decide whether our fear is going to get the better of us. Once upon a time, we had a standard in our country that was innocent until proven guilty. Weve given up on so much. Now people are talking about a standard that is if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Think about it. Is that the standard were willing to live under . Think about whether your records as held by the credit card companies, your bank or the phone company, whether you believe that you still have a privacy interest in these. In the patriot act, they did something to make it easier to collect records and to override your privacy agreement. If you read the nittygritty of any of these agreements that you have when you use a Search Engine or youre on the internet, you do voluntarily say your information will be shared in an anonymous way but they promise theyre not giving your name to somebody. The phone company has the same sort of privacy arrangements privacy agreements. But what has happened is through the patriot act, we have given them liability protection. And at first blush you might say we have too many damn lawsuits. Im kind of that way. Im a physician. We have way too many lawsuits. Im for cutting back on lawsuits. But at the same time if you give the phone company or the Internet Company or the Credit Card Company immunity to ignore your privacy agreement, they will. So the new system is instead of the government storing billions and billions of records in utah, were still going to store billions and billions of records in the phone company but still the question is will we access them in a general way. It says were going to do a specific person, but if you look where a person is defined, a person could be a corporation. I dont think you should have a warrant that says verizon and gets all the records for all of the customers. The other thing thats been going on they havent been completely honest with, and we have some data on is that the government is going inside of the software. Theyre asking people like facebook or demanding people like facebook that they give them access through their source codes so the government can get in. Now to facebooks credit, facebook is fighting them and i think more companies now are standing up and trying to fight against this, but the government is going in and in a nefarious way into the code of facebook and then inserting malware into other peoples facebook and spreading it throughout the internet. The government also is looking at communication between two modes. So lets say you communicate with google and its encrypted but when google has a data center that talks to another data center, there is a place that is nonencrypted and the government is just simply hooking up to the cable and siphoning off records. There is a danger that youll have no privacy left in the end of this. The Fourth Amendments very specific. The Fourth Amendment says you have to individualize a warrant, you have to put a name on the warrant. You have to say specifically what records you want. You have to say where theyre located, and then you have to ask a judge for permission. The sneak and peek warrants that i was talking about before is section 213. Its now permanent law. We dont even get a chance to talk about it. We could repeal it, and i will have an amendment to repeal it. This is where the government goes in secretly, and they say well, we need this lower standard because terrorists will get us if we dont. Well, weve now had it on the books for a decade, and do you know who theyre getting . Drug people. People either buying, selling or using drugs. Thats a domestic crime. Which also leads me to Something Else about the patriot act that really bothers me, is that when we first started talking about the standards, going from probable cause, which is what the constitution has, to articulatable suspicions down to relevant, we say well, were going to lower standards because were going after foreigners. Theyre not americans and theyre not here, were going to lower the standard, and really there can be some debate in favor of that. When we first did it, though, we said that you couldnt use that information for a domestic crime. And again, sort of an example. And i asked one of the intelligence folks at one time to answer this and was dissatisfied with the response. Lets say the government comes into a sneak and peek warrant. They dont tell you, theyre in your house. They find out, guess what, youre not a terrorist but you have paint in your house that you bought through your office, business spence, and youre painting your house at home, which is a tax violation. Its a domestic crime, but they got into your house through false pretenses. They said you were a terrorist, they just were wrong but they found out that youre not being perfectly honest with your taxes. Theyve because they say the Fourth Amendment doesnt protect records, or your phone records. Not the content, just all of this data, putting it together and meshing it and deciding that maybe youre somebody who runs traffic lights by the by the your footprint, your digital footprint. The thing is, is now were then taking something that was intended to capture foreigners and were going to capture people domestically and prosecute them for domestic crime. The specific thing they promised us never to do. So things morph and they get bigger and bigger. We could have a valid debate about whether we have gone too far, but we ought to at least have a debate. Shouldnt we get together and say lets have a debate, lets devote all week to this. I have been asking for a while to have a full day and have five or six amendments that senator wyden and i could put forward and have a fullfledged debate over whether or not the bulk collection of our records is something we should continue to well over 60 of the people think the government has gone too far. But if you want an example of why the senate or congress doesnt present the people very well aware there may be a decade behind, about you its 20 of the people here would vote to stop this, to truly just stop it. At the most. Where is it 60 or 7 of the public would stop these things. Youre not well presented. Whats happened is i think the congress is maybe a decade behind the people. I think this is an argument for why we should let limit terms. I think it is an argument for why we should have more turnover in office, because we get appear and we stay too long and we get separated from the people. The people dont want the bulk collection of the records. And if we were listening, we would year that. The vote in the house, while i dont think the bill is perfect and i think it may well continue bulk collection, was over 300 votes and this program to end this program and say were no longer going to have all collection. Yet it looks like a majority of this body still says we need bulk collection. In fact, the biggest complaint for the majority of the body is that were not collecting enough records. That we need to collect more records. Can you have security and liberty at the same time . I had breakfast with a high ranking official from our Intelligence Community maybe six months ago and i asked him how much information do you get from metadata and how much do you know getting from a warrant . He says without question, you get more from a warrant. People talk about whether we can go one hop or two hop. That means if someones if youre suspected of terrorism and you called 100 people, if we look at your records, thats one hop. If we look at the records of the next 100, thats a second hop. So as you go in, this pyramid gets bigger and bigger until you talk about tens of thousands of people. But as youre getting farther and farther away from the suspect, i see no reason why you couldnt keep getting warrants. If they say the warrants are slow and laborious. The president started a civil rights board. Some of the things they came up with were truly astounding. The amount of information is mindboggling what is being sucked up in this. There is something called section 702 of five the. This allows them to collect records unamerican to vitamin medicating with a foreigner. It goes out and ripples and becomes this enormous amount this enormous case of information. When they looked at some of this recently, they found that nine of 10 intercepted conversations were not intended targets. I think it was one estimate that in the last year we had 89,000 targets. But if