The following is a transcript of remarks made by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy upon this morning’s release of the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s illegal seizing of thousands of phone records of Americans (including those of American newspaper reporters) by: lying to phone companies, lying to FISA court [...]

As a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota, Al Franken refused to make any comment about the FISA Amendments Act, a bill which became law while Franken was running for election. The FISA Amendments Act(read text of the law here) legalized a massive electronic operation to spy on the personal communications of millions people [...]

Last week, ten Senators introduced legislation that would begin to undo the damage to constitutional liberty inflicted by the USA Patriot Act of 2001 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. S. 1686, given the acronym of the JUSTICE Act, is a long bill; the following is a summary of its most central provisions: Revisions [...]

On Wednesday, September 9, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois added his name in cosponsorship of H.R. 104, a bill to establish a national commission on presidential war powers and civil liberties. This bill, introduced by Rep. John Conyers, would create an independent investigative body with subpoena powers to unearth the nature and extent of [...]

n/a* * despite brouhaha over warrantless wiretapping, no such bills exist

April 16, 2009. Senator Russell Feingold issues the following statement regarding the FISA Amendments Act and the Patriot Act: Since 2001, I have spent a lot of time in the Intelligence Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and on the floor of the Senate bringing attention to both the possible and actual effects of legislation that has [...]

My, my. What a coincidence. On June 9, 2008, Florida Congressman Tim Mahoney received a campaign contribution from AT&T’s federal political action committee. On June 20, 2008, Tim Mahoney voted for the FISA Amendments Act, a bill that gives AT&T retroactive immunity for breaking the law by violating its customers’ privacy. On June 27, 2008, [...]

The FISA Amendments Act is profoundly, thoroughly unconstitutional and anticonstitutional. It makes the fourth amendment in the Bill of Rights irrelevant, completely ignores the ban on ex post facto laws, slams the concept of equal protection under the law, and generally wrecks the system of checks and balances between what are supposed to be three coequal branches of government. So, why won’t Hillary Clinton declare her opposition to this terrible law?

Please, let’s hear no more about how Barack Obama needed to support the FISA Amendments Act in order to get the support of red state America. Voters in Alabama wanted change, and they believed in the message of Barack Obama, until they saw that Obama plans on giving America the same old dirty politics of fear that Alabamans have been stuck with for generations. Red state Americans oppose the FISA Amendments Act too, and they see through Barack Obama’s crass maneuvering to pander to the right.

I want to make sure that we’ve got all the people that have bent the law for their own benefit and taken advantage of the people, I want to make sure that we don’t allow those people to slip away again. Quite honestly, I have a feeling that the immunity through the telecom is more of a potential cover for the Administration than necessarily for the telecom community.