By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:46pm
Just two months ago, when President Obama nominated the architect of his vast killing program, John Brennan, to be CIA Director...
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 6:36pm
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) deserves significant credit for placing a hold today on a draft intelligence spending bill that would place enormous new obstacles in the path of journalists trying to report on government illegality, fraud and waste in the intelligence community. Although it is true that national security sometimes requires secrecy, restrictions on freedom of the press would do little to benefit the national security while significantly insulating government wrongdoing from public scrutiny.
By Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU at 6:09pm
"Contrary to core principles of American democracy." That's how two U.S. senators describe the Justice Department's refusal to release a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act.
Last year, we filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for records about the government's use and interpretation of one of the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions: Section 215. Some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee had suggested that the provision was being abused. "When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act," Colorado Sen. Mark Udall said, "they will be stunned and they will be angry."
