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65 2010 House Freshmen Re-Authorized PATRIOT with No Notice of Section 215 Dragnet

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The White Paper claims that the Section 215 dragnet is legal, in large part, because Congress has twice extended the PATRIOT Act without changing the terms of Section 215. A key of part that argument rests on the Administration’s claim that it gave notice to Congress about the dragnet.

Moreover, information concerning the use of Section 215 to collect telephony metadata in bulk was made available to all Members of Congress, and Congress reauthorized Section 215 without change after this information was provided. It is significant to the legal analysis of the statute that Congress was on notice of this activity and of the source of its legal authority when the statute was reauthorized.

But as I noted, the White Paper actually suggests that a big group of Congressmen — most of the 93 members elected in 2010 — got no notice. While the Administration provided House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers with a description of the program, he appears not to have invited all members of the House to read it, as Dianne Feinstein invited all members of the Senate to do.

Since I wrote that post, Justin Amash confirmed that his class did not get an invitation to read the notice.

Less than two weeks ago, the Obama administration released previously classified documents regarding ‪#‎NSA‬’s bulk collection programs and indicated that two of these documents had been made available to all Members of Congress prior to the vote on reauthorization of the Patriot Act. I can now confirm that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence did NOT, in fact, make the 2011 document available to Representatives in Congress, meaning that the large class of Representatives elected in 2010 did not receive either of the now declassified documents detailing these programs.

I double checked via Twitter, and Amash confirmed that Rogers just never invited the House to read it.

Just 7 2010 freshmen (Sandy Adams, Trey Gowdy, Tim Griffin, Joe Heck, Tom Marino, Ben Quayle, and Dennis Ross) were on either the House Intelligence Committee or the House Judiciary Committee at the time, and therefore presumably had the opportunity to learn about the dragnet there.

The PATRIOT Act Reauthorization passed by a broad 250-153 margin.

But by my calculation, 65 of those yes votes were freshmen who had never had opportunity to learn about the dragnet. Many of them would have presumably voted to reauthorize it knowing about the dragnet (and Mike Pompeo, who played a key role in defeating Amash-Conyers, was a non-vote who would clearly vote yes). But in theory at least Mike Rogers chose not to inform a sufficiently large group that it could have swung the vote.

The Administration claims it informed Congress about the dragnet. But whether acting on his own or at the behest of the Administration, Mike Rogers left a sufficiently large group in the dark so as to negate the validity of that claim.

Steny Hoyer Thinks All Americans May Be Pre-Investigation Terrorist Communicators

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Like Glenn Greenwald, I’m appalled by the crazy language Steny Hoyer circulated yesterday to oppose the Amash-Conyers amendment. Here’s the language:

2) Amash/Conyers/Mulvaney/Polis/Massie Amendment – Bars the NSA and other agencies from using Section 215 of the Patriot Act (as codified by Section 501 of FISA) to collect records, including telephone call records, that pertain to persons who may be in communication with terrorist groups but are not already subject to an investigation under Section 215.

The language is crazy on the macro level, as Glenn notes, but I’m also fascinated by the structure of it. First, the language reverses the structure of the actual “relevant to” language that has been blown up beyond all meaning pretending it is instead specific: “pertain to persons who may be in communication with terrorist groups.” But this language is only true if you assume every single American is a pre-investigative terrorist communicator (and to be fair, with the permission to go three hops deep into the dragnet database, we probably all are “in communication with terrorist groups”). Steny then qualifies this group (all of us, really, now that we’ve all been defined to be terrorist communicators through the genius of the half-Bacon) as “not already subject to an investigation.”

But you will be, America. You will be subject to an investigation, according to Steny Hoyer.

Then there are details of the language that suggest why the Administration panicked so badly. This language would have defunded all bulk collection under Section 215, including phone records, but also including acetone and hydrogen peroxide and probably now pressure cookers. Presumably, that’s what Keith Alexander and James Clapper explained to Congress in their TS/SCI briefings the other day (not having learned they’re better off admitting their dragnets rather than having them exposed).

Which is why I find it interesting that Steny noted this would apply to NSA “and other agencies,” which includes, but is apparently not limited to, FBI.  And these other agencies are using 215 to collect, “records, including telephone call records.” And probably including health records and geolocation and gun records and the like.

And Steny wants to make sure the FBI and other agencies can get this information about us, because after all, once you go three hops deep, every American just becomes a terrorist communicator not yet under investigation.