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Washington\u2019s Blog<\/b><\/a> Senators Wyden and Udall \u2014 both on the Senate Intelligence Committee, with full access to information on the spying program \u2014 have said that for at least 2 years that\u00a0the government was using a \u201csecret interpretation\u201d of the Patriot Act<\/a>\u00a0which would shock Americans, because it provides a breathtakingly wide program of spying. And\u00a0see this<\/a>.<\/p>\n Wyden and Udall said that they couldn\u2019t reveal to the public \u2014 or even other members of Congress who lack top security clearance \u2014 what the secret interpretation is \u2026 and that most Congress members weretotally ignorant about it<\/em>.<\/p>\n The author of the Patriot Act and\u00a0chairman on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations \u2014 Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner \u2014\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0that the government has gone\u00a0far beyond<\/em>\u00a0what the Patriot Act intended, and that the Act \u201cwas originally drafted to\u00a0prevent<\/em>data mining\u201d on the scale that\u2019s occurred.<\/p>\n A top NSA whistleblower told us that the secret interpretation is that\u00a0the government spies on everyone<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Wall Street Journal has just\u00a0disclosed<\/a>\u00a0the specifics of the \u201csecret interpretation\u201d:<\/p>\n In classified orders starting in the mid-2000s, the court accepted that\u00a0\u201crelevant\u201d could be broadened to permit an entire database of records on millions of people<\/strong>, in contrast to a more conservative interpretation widely applied in criminal cases, in which only some of those records would likely be allowed, according to people familiar with the ruling.<\/p>\n \u201cRelevant\u201d has long been a broad standard, but the way the court is interpreting it, to mean, in effect, \u201ceverything,\u201d is new<\/strong>, says Mark Eckenwiler, a senior counsel at Perkins Coie LLP who, until December, was the\u00a0Justice Department\u2019s primary authority on federal criminal surveillance law<\/strong>.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Two senators on the Intelligence Committee, Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) and Mark Udall (D., Colo.), have argued repeatedly that there was a \u201csecret interpretation\u201d of the Patriot Act.The senators\u2019 offices tell the Journal that this new interpretation of the word \u201crelevant\u201d is what they meant.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Interpreting \u201crelevant\u201d as meaning \u201ceverything\u201d throws more than 200 years of American law on its head \u2026 plus a couple hundred\u00a0additional<\/em>\u00a0years of British common law on which early American law was based. The most\u00a0basic<\/em>\u00a0principle of evidence law is that only information\u00a0actually relevant to the case<\/a>\u00a0can be admitted.<\/p>\n Moreover, top national security experts say that pretending that \u201ceverything\u201d is \u201crelevant\u201d means that intelligence agencies will be swamped with useless information \u2026\u00a0which will make them\u00a0less<\/em>\u00a0able to prevent terrorist attacks<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nJuly 11, 2013<\/p>\n