Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been waging a lonely battle to make public information about the Justice Department’s interpretation of the Patriot Act, which they claim violates civil liberties in as-yet undisclosed ways. They tried to force this into the public sphere on the Senate floor. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein promised hearings [...]

For months now, Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have spoken out about the Justice Department’s interpretation – wrongful interpretation, in their view – of the Patriot Act, which has led to some unnamed manner of mischief in terms of civil liberties deprivation through mass data collection. Wyden and Udall have implored DoJ to explain [...]

Amidst the inevitable 9-11 retrospectives, I feel like only the Los Angeles Times is putting the past ten years in the proper perspective. Because the longest-lasting legacy of the 9-11 attacks is clearly the terror industry it spawned. Over the weekend the LAT looked at the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on absurd [...]

It appears that Rand Paul has reached some kind of deal on his insistence to get votes for his amendments to the Patriot Act. There will now be votes on the amendments, with a likely 60-vote threshold. But the expectation is that the amendments will fail, and final passage will be secured Thursday. That will [...]

Rand Paul is using the tools at his disposal to keep the debate going on extending three provisions the Patriot Act, by insisting on all post-cloture time and insisting on votes on his amendments. The provisions lapse on Friday, which means that Paul’s gambit could cause them to temporarily expire for new investigations. Check out [...]

As I noted yesterday, the Senate passed cloture, by a 74-8 margin, on the motion to proceed for a four-year extension of key provisions of the Patriot Act. Final passage is expected Wednesday, so for a seminal civil liberties issue that has been in place nearly ten years, we will see essentially one day of [...]

The Senate will vote later today on a motion to proceed to S.1038 which would extend three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for four years, with almost no debate. As David Waldman notes, this is the third cloture vote on a motion to proceed in the last four legislative days in the Senate, showing [...]

Congressional leaders in both parties made a deal to extend three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for four more years with little debate. Earlier this year, the same provisions – roving wiretaps, court-approved access to business records, and “lone wolf” provisions allowing surveillance on foreign citizens without connections to terrorists – were extended for [...]

President Obama announced that he would prefer FBI Director Robert Mueller to stay on for an additional two years beyond the 10-year term he has already served. Mueller, who became director of the FBI one week before 9-11, would see his term otherwise expire September 4. Here’s an excerpt of the President’s statement. I believe [...]

I’ve been so distracted by Wisconsin that I haven’t kept an eye on events in Washington. But some things are happening. First, the House disposed of a three-month extension of key provisions of the Patriot Act, which was negotiated down from a year in the Senate earlier this week. So that goes to the President, [...]

When the House passed a 10-month extension of key provisions of the Patriot Act last night, it was assumed that the Senate would follow suit quickly. And they will vote on the measure tonight. However, they will narrow the extension to three months, in a move with bipartisan support. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chair of [...]