Reining in Big Brother
Reining in Big Brother
02/04/06
by Rep. Sanders
Last week, the Bennington Banner published an editorial that boldly explored the assault the Bush administration is waging on our constitutional freedoms. In it, the editors describe an Orwellian future in which the administration maintains unchecked power to watch over Americans and monitor what we read, write and say. Unfortunately, this prediction could well become a reality if we do not rein in abuses by the Bush administration.
Let's be clear about what the debate over our civil liberties is really about. I strongly believe that we must do everything in our power to effectively fight international terrorism and protect our country from another terrorist attack. What I disagree with is the Bush administration's assertion that we must sacrifice our core constitutional rights and grant the president unchecked power to spy on our own citizens in order to do it.
In the coming weeks, Congress will be faced with two important decisions that will impact the ability of all Americans to communicate and access information without Big Brother watching over our shoulders. The first is the renewal of the USA Patriot Act. Written at a time when our nation was reeling from the horrific attacks of Sept. 11, the Patriot Act received little scrutiny and even less opposition when it initially passed. Only one senator and 66 House members voted against it, including myself. Four years later, with the opportunity to take a more sober look at the act, a large coalition of members from both sides of the aisle agree that many portions of the act unnecessarily trample on our constitutional freedoms.
One key provision that I have worked to reform is Section 215, which allows the federal government to access the reading records of Americans in both libraries and bookstores without a traditional search warrant. In July, working with librarians in Vermont and across the country, I put forward an amendment that would have prevented these searches. This amendment received wide bipartisan support and passed overwhelmingly in the House. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership chose to ignore the will of Congress and used their power to procedurally block this amendment, as well as many other reform proposals.
Despite this abuse of power, the Republican leadership couldn't silence the coalition of progressives and conservatives in Congress committed to protecting civil liberties. In December, these members refused to pass the Republican leaderships' reauthorization bill in the Senate. As a result, we will have another opportunity to reform and vote on this bill next month. In this new authorization bill, our coalition is fighting for a revision to Section 215 that would require the FBI to show facts linking a citizen to terrorism in order to obtain his or her reading records. We are also pushing to have this standard applied to National Security Letters, another Patriot Act mechanism for obtaining citizens' library, bookstore, medical, and business records.
The second issue Congress must confront in the battle to restore our constitutional freedoms is the recent revelation that President Bush has overseen a secret domestic spying operation with no oversight by our judicial system. Essentially, the National Security Agency program goes beyond the excesses of the Patriot Act by allowing the administration to spy directly on American citizens without any checks and balances by Congress or the courts. This means that this administration is asking the American people to allow them to act with unprecedented, unchecked power and just trust them not to abuse it.
We simply cannot allow the freedoms on which our nation was founded to be subject to the whim of an administration whose term has been defined by repeated abuses of power. In the coming weeks, I will continue to work in Congress to protect our constitutional rights by restoring judicial checks and balances to the Patriot Act and ensuring that this president is not permitted to act outside the law when it comes to spying on American citizens.
http://bernie.house.gov/documents/document.asp?issueNum=4777