Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R‑WI) is nothing if not a security hawk, and this weekend he decried the NSA’s collection of all Americans’ phone calling records in a Guardian post entitled, “This Abuse of the Patriot Act Must End.” On Thursday last week, he sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding answers by Wednesday.
It also became apparent over the weekend that the National Security Agency’s program to collect records of every phone call made in the United States is not for the purpose of data mining. (A Wall Street Journal editorial entitled “Thank You for Data Mining” was not only wrong on the merits, but also misplaced.) Rather, the program seizes data about all of our telephone communications and stores that data so it can aid investigations of any American who comes under suspicion in the future.
Details of this program will continue to emerge–and perhaps new shocks. The self-disclosed leaker–currently holed up in a Hong Kong hotel room waiting to learn his fate–is fascinating to watch as he explains his thinking.
The court order requiring Verizon to turn over records of every call “on an ongoing daily basis” is a general warrant.
The Framers adopted the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution in order to bar general warrants. The Fourth Amendment requires warrants 1) to be based upon probable cause and 2) to particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. The leaked warrant has neither of these qualities.
A warrant like this would never be adopted in an open court system. With arguments and decisions available to the public and appeals going to public courts, common sense and simple shame would foreclose suspicionless data-gathering about every American for the benefit of future potential investigations.
Alas, many people don’t believe all that deeply in the Constitution and the rule of law when facile promises of national security are on offer. It is thus worthwhile to discuss whether this is unconstitutional law enforcement and security practice would work. President Obama said last week, “I welcome this debate and I think it’s healthy for our democracy.”