Belmont Club » They Walk Among Us: "Is Harry Reid correct in saying that the government needs these tools? How would we know? What government can do — and what they the interpret the act as allowing — is classified. Wyden wants to uncover the “secret interpretation of the law” while protecting “sources and methods”. Part of the problem Wyden may encounter is that any non-trivial disclosure of legal interpretation will allow the public to deduce a great deal about the sources and methods. In other words, if the government told us what it thought it could legally do the public could figure out how they were doing it. Wired suggests that “geolocation information” from cellphones might be an area that Patriot Act thinks ought to be accessible to government and points out that Wyden has sponsored a bill that would provide legal protections for such information. (Readers of “No Way In” may find this a familiar theme.)
But that is speculation.
While some members of the public may have been comforted by President Obama’s announced intention to fight the War on Terror as if it were a law enforcement problem, some probably realized from the beginning that bringing operations traditionally associated with war under the law-enforcement roof might hold certain dangers."
I could have sworn that Barack O'bama thought the Patriot Act was a crock of sh*t. My memory must be going...
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