Street Roots talks with Oregon’s senior senator about the government’s surveillance program on its own citizens.
Like you, I’m angry.
Angry at being spied upon by my own government, and then lied to about it. Not exactly virgin territory for a nation with the COINTELPRO, Iran-Contra and sundry other covert operations under its belt, but this is still fresh, and it affects everyone.
Ron Wyden’s angry too. The senior senator from Oregon isn’t wasting any time on his summer break in campaigning against the federal government’s domestic surveillance program.
The revelations of the bulk collection of e-mails, phone records and more, along with personal data trails of citizens, with the complicity of telecommunications corporations, has bolstered Wyden’s call to reverse what are being described as blanket and indiscriminate powers tapped under the Patriot Act to spy on Americans. He and a growing number of lawmakers — on both sides of the aisle — are calling for reforms to the National Security Agency (NSA), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and its secret court. It’s part of what Wyden calls the “secret law,” with legal analysis, authorization and operations all considered classified in a “culture of misinformation.”
Wyden is back in Portland during the break, and after a town hall meeting about health care, Street Roots sat down with the senator to chat about our government’s mission to spy on its citizens.
Joanne Zuhl: You’ve likened PRISM and the government’s surveillance operations on citizens to other major covert operations of the U.S. in the past, including the Bush administration's unwarranted surveillance practices. Is this different – worse – than what we’ve seen in the past?
Ron Wyden: This is a unique time in our country’s history. The merger of this extraordinary surveillance technology coupled with the executive branch’s ability to conjure up legal arguments for using them, and the most bizarre court in America, the FISA court, that really only hears one side of the case, is a prescription for trouble.
It used to be that technological limitations worked to the individual’s interest, because there were limits on technology, it was harder to violate people’s rights. Now with technological ability to do virtually anything, the real protection is focusing in the rights of the individual under the law.
The technology has advanced to the point where protecting the individual under the law is absolutely essential, because with technology today there are almost no limits. The growth of omnipresent, ever-expanding surveillance is an enormous challenge.
J.Z.: You’ve described the activities NSA and the FBI – in their data mining of citizens’ telecommunication records and potential civil liberties violations, as just the tip of the iceberg. So what is it that you know that we should know?
R.W.: I can’t get into the details of classified information. But two areas I’m concerned about are when Director (James) Clapper (Director of National Intelligence) wrote to me and 25 other senators, saying that there had been violations of the Patriot Act. And while I can’t get into details, I will say those violations are significant. More serious than he said in that public letter.
The reality is that, part of the reform agenda has to roll back this culture of misinformation. You had the head of the NSA go to a public meeting and say we don’t hold data on U.S. citizens. That’s one of the most false statements ever made about surveillance, and a big reason I had to ask Director Clapper in an open hearing because we couldn’t get an adequate response.
J.Z.: If you can’t get an honest answer, what chance is there for the public?
R.W.: First of all, as I said, the last time the Patriot Act came up for a vote, the truth always comes out. We’ve won a number of substantial victories over the years. We’ve blocked the overly broad anti-leaks law, and led the fight to roll back total information awareness programs. I did get a good FISA change, passed earlier, that offered privacy protections for Americans traveling abroad. We blocked General (Michael) Hayden from rolling back the powers of the inspector general when he was head of the CIA.
This is a time when, if we don’t take steps to ensure that Americans can have both security and liberty, I think our generation is going to regret it forever.
J.Z.: You’re spearheading two pieces of legislation heading into the fall session that would reform how the FISA court operates and how the Patriot Act is interpreted. What would these bills do?
R.W.: The big part of the problem with the Patriot Act is that the language that talks about collecting information that’s relevant to dealing with terrorists was somehow morphed into a program that allowed the government to collect everybody’s phone records, who they called and where they were called from.
The defenders say they’re not listening to the calls. When you have this metadata, it can me very intrusive. You can find out if somebody called their psychiatrist several times after midnight and for how long they talked. You don’t have to be listening to the call to know a lot about that person. So Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and I want to roll it back to what people think it is.
J.Z.: But were the oversight and the openness of the law intended for this very purpose?
R.W.: I can’t get into any of the details about that. But when the plain text of a law talks about relevance to a terror investigation, and it’s secretly interpreted by the government to allow the bulk collection of phone records, that’s a pretty big departure.
Reform number two, this change is made to the FISA Court, which meets in secret. And the FISA Court hands down the opinion, and there’s nobody there to make the other argument. So I and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and others have introduced legislation providing for an independent advocate. And I think that’s very important.
The third part, is Congressman (Jason) Chaffetz, from Utah, have introduced legislation that makes sure the government has a warrant to track somebody on their cell phone unless there were reasonable grounds that there are terrorist involvement.
J.Z.: And you have some momentum building with this, with the near passage of the Amash-Conyers amendment that would have stopped the NSA from spending money to spy on American citizens not already under investigation.
R.W.: Ten weeks ago we wouldn’t have been having this debate. We wouldn’t have had 200 votes; we wouldn’t have the intelligence community taking down fact sheets that we saw had false information in them. Our side’s on the march.
J.Z.: And you hope to have this move forward in September or October?
R.W.: That’s our hope.
J.Z.: What is your position on Edward Snowden?
R.W.: A long time ago when I said that changing these laws was gong to be a priority of mine, I made a judgment, and if I start commenting on every possible development, particularly when someone is charged criminally, I’ll never be able to keep the focus on the reform agenda. There’s a charge of criminal espionage. I’ll leave it at that.
I’ll also say 10 weeks ago there never would have been this debate. This is a debate that should have been started by elected officials. And I’ll leave it at that.
J.Z.: The Patriot Act and its manifestations were borne out of the Bush administration, and some people are dismayed to see this level of surveillance and classified activities continue, and perhaps enhanced, under the Obama administration.
R.W.: The administration has been very good on some issues that I and our community care a lot about, like torture, which he came right out of the blocks and talked about. This is an area where more has to be done. The president invited myself and others to the Oval Office on Aug. 1. I made a number of the points we’ve talked about here. We talked about the backdoor loophole and PRISM and how important it is to close that.
I won’t say what he said in the Oval Office, only what I did. But he was fair, he said I want suggestions, and the facts, and I said, “Mr. President, you’re going to get them from me.” And he smiled.
J.Z.: What do you say to those who would argue that this is the kind of security we need in this time: that this is making us safer.
R.W.: We need protection, but there needs to be a clear recognition. There’s a difference between secret law and secret operations. Americans understand that that when our men and women are out there in harms way in operations like trying to capture Osama Bin Laden, those operations have got to be kept secret. Otherwise you put people at risk. The law, however, and the interpretation by the executive branch of how our law is carried out, should never be secret. That’s why I developed this concept of secret law. Laws are supposed to be public. And that’s always been our tradition. Sources and methods, how you carry out an operation, those are classified. But the laws have to be public. It’s a bedrock principal. Our side is not gong to rest until we’ve reformed secret law.
J.Z.: We have two fusion centers in Oregon. One in Salem and one in Portland. I believe there is one in every state, at least, these days. These are the sites where federal and local law enforcement agencies, including the NSA and the FBI, are collecting intelligence on people. What is your opinion of them?
R.W.: I can’t talk about that
J.Z.: But we have two here in Oregon. And these centers are the hubs for all of this, what we’re talking about here.
R.W.: I can’t go there. It’s a classified thing.
J.Z.: What implication does this kind of surveillance and data-mining have on community organizing, the work of nonprofits and advocacy groups?
R.W.: There is a long history of abuses in this field. It’s been well documented. It drives how important it is when the omnipresent, ever-expanding surveillance state, and the bureaucracy, seems to be unchecked going far beyond people’s privacy and what most of the people are doing — that there are reform.
