The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“SURVEILLANCE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2288 on May 27, 2020.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SURVEILLANCE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, October 2001, under the shadow of 9/11, with the House office buildings evacuated because of the threat of anthrax, a bill authored by Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner and the Bush White House was brought before the House. It was called the USA PATRIOT Act.
Now, who could, in the shadow of 9/11, vote against anything called the USA PATRIOT Act? Well, I did, as did 66 other Members; 3 Republicans, 62 Democrats, and 1 Independent, because of the unbelievably, unconstitutionally broad powers that would be granted for surveillance of all the American people in myriad ways.
Now, there wasn't even a copy of the bill available. I came to the floor, and I said: Can I have a copy of the bill? They said: Sorry, there is only one. It is on the Republican side. I said: Well, it is not the Senate. I can't filibuster, but I will make it a long day with the adjournment votes. Get me a copy. They printed out a copy, it was hot off the Xerox. I got rushed on this side by Members of the Judiciary Committee who ostensibly authored the bill to try and find out what the heck was in it, but people still voted for it. The abuses that have come under this are myriad and well-documented.
Now, I credit Zoe Lofgren for trying to amend the most egregious section, 215, and my colleague, Ron Wyden from Oregon. Senator Wyden almost succeeded in the Senate, short one vote. And Zoe tried on the last reauthorization and this one to amend that. Unfortunately, she was pressured by and forced to, since otherwise they would block her amendment, to water down her revisions to section 215.
Now, Senator Wyden is opposed, as are others. What is section 215? Unbelievably broad, warrantless, intrusive, internet searches of everything you look at, browse online. For what purpose? Who knows? What are they going to do with that information? Well, maybe they are going to apply an algorithm and find something. They gather so much data, they don't know what to do with it.
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What is the legal standard? A presumption of relevance to an investigation. Isn't that a laughable standard? You could presume relevance to virtually anything in the world at any time.
So this bill, even if that amendment should pass, even if the bill comes up today--it is questionable whether it will. We now have government by tweet on that side of the aisle.
Trump says jump; they jump. And last night, Trump said he is against this, even though it has a special provision in the bill for President Trump because of the Carter Page abuses.
It says the ``Attorney General,'' in quotes--by the way, that means any senior official in the Justice Department--would have to sign off on targeting Federal officials or candidates for office.
First off, why should those people be exempt if they are engaged in terrorist activities or presumptive relevance of terrorist activities?
But, again, ``Attorney General,'' with this laughable clown in the Attorney General's Office who jumps even higher than they do when the President tweets, I don't think so. Just think of how they could use that politically, not for intelligence purposes.
It does nothing to reform section 702, which is incidental backdoor accumulation of data. There are many, many documented abuses of section 202.
It does finally do away with what was revealed by Mr. Snowden, the massive gathering of all phone records.
Again, what are they going to do with it? Hundreds of millions of records, no effective algorithms, no way to figure out what it was about. It was useless, operationally, as analyzed by numerous commissions and others, but there was still massive compliance and errors.
Even the NSA said: No, we don't want that anymore; we can't do anything with it. But the administration asked that it be continued. This bill doesn't continue it, one of the few merits of this so-called reform bill.
This bill does not deserve passage. It does not undo the damage that was created in the shadow of 9/11, to the ignorance of most Members of Congress who voted for it.
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