Posted on 10/13/2011 3:03:10 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
The New York Times is suing the U.S. government for refusing to divulge how its law enforcement interprets the Patriot Act.
After a series of Freedom of Information requests were declined to reveal the classified interpretation of the Patriot Act — a description that Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Udall (D-Colorado) described as “deeply disturbing” — the newspaper sought to battle it out in the courts.
Some months ago, it was found that the Patriot Act was being interpreted by government departments in a way to aid their ongoing investigations, leading to calls that there was a “classified” element to the counter-terrorism law.
The two senators, members of the Senate intelligence committee, have access to the secret interpretation of the law, but are bound by secrecy laws and cannot disclose it publicly. They believe that how law enforcement interprets the Act greatly differs from how the general public believe the federal government interprets the law; leading to the vast majority of the public not knowing how the law is actually used.
(Excerpt) Read more at zdnet.com ...
We seem to wait for the Left to lead the fight for the constituion, and the problem is, they celebrate that conservatives are officially targeted by our government and despise the government targeting Islamists.
No matter, the Left always comes out on top because they sue and object to each other being targeted even while, secretly advocating the unconstitutional targeting of their social and political enemies in the US.
This may be one time I side with the Dems! I hope the NYT wins this one.
Ditto.
NYT is suing so that terrorists will have visibility into certain elements of the law.
Wow....my tard of a Senator did something right. I guess a broken clock is right twice a day.
The government needs to also realease the secret legal analysis they used to kill al Awlaki.
I agree with what was done but I am concerned about the possibility the legal reasoning the government used is not based on the traditional law of war.
What might be ‘deeply disturbing’ to them is that the law enforcement agencies might be viewing Islamic terrorists as being, well, terrorists. And what the NYT is fishing for is another ‘Bush is Evil’ angle where the Patriot Act was interpreted as being a tool against terrorists!
‘course, could be something different, but when I see Dem senators and the NYT working on something, almost always it's something to support the liberal agenda. Call me an uber skeptic.
You're right - we're the people they're after...
You're right - we're the people they're after...
I find it disturbing that I'm on the NY Times side in a lawsuit.
Passport renewal and time to seriously look at countries that might have a little freedom left.
Yeah, good luck with that. If the US falls to communism/fascism, the world world is up the creek.
Yes, I read it, and a few others on the topic. Looks like there’s nothing in the law that is secret, but there is a procedural issue involving how FBI gets subpoenas and warrants in international terrorist cases, and that’s what NYT is suing for, to reveal those procedures by claiming it’s Patriot Act that has the secrecy, not the procedures, and the basis for this connection seems to be that NYT thinks that FBI has interpreted a section of Patriot a certain way.
As for me, I think I’d know if I were doing something that might be close to the line of “international terrorism”. I know what’s in PA and the Antiterrorism Act of 1993, the predecessor to Patriot that the left apparently had no problems with.
If NYT and a bunch of Dem politicians want this information revealed, it is surely to advance the Progressive/left agenda against us- it’s nothing good.
I think you are right. They are the one’s who pushed redefining domestic terrorist to include traditional Christians and Jews and all other politically incorrect activists.
No doubt they are trying to protect Islamists from the defination of terrorist. We should have sued for them putting us on the list. We are a day late and a dollar short.
It should have been done even before Obama. Obama made much it worse. Warrant less wire taps and making us all domestic terrorists started with the Patriot Act under Bush. As long as we allow outside unaccountable organizations (SPLC???) to influence our government such as the MIAC report in Missouri, our Constitution is in jeopardy. Gov Rendell in PA hired an outside the USA (Israeli) company ITTR to spy on the Tea Party and others.
We need to make our focus defending our US Constitution and forget the political wrangling. Politicians always want to control the message and have more power at the expense of the people.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/2010/09/22/who-is-spying-on-whom/
Related article.
It’s not looking too good right now.
“No doubt they are trying to protect Islamists from the defination of terrorist.”
Or give the islamists a tool to avoid scrutiny.
bump
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