What is Section 215?
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Under Section 215, the government can apply to the FISA court to compel businesses (like Verizon) to hand over user records. Here's what Slate wrote about Section 215 in a 2003 guide to the Patriot Act:
Section 215 modifies the rules on records searches. Post-Patriot Act, third-party holders of your financial, library, travel, video rental, phone, medical, church, synagogue, and mosque records can be searched without your knowledge or consent, providing the government says it's trying to protect against terrorism.
As Section 215 stands today -- in the reauthorized version of the Patriot Act passed in 2005 -- "tangible things" (aka user data) sought in a FISA order "must be 'relevant' to an authorized preliminary or full investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a U.S. person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." It also established congressional oversight for the FISA program, requiring the DOJ to conduct an audit of the program and the "effectiveness" of Section 215, and to submit an unclassified report on the audit to the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary and Intelligence.
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This Is What Section 215 of the Patriot Act Does
by Emma Roller, slate.com -- June 7, 2013
What is Section 215?
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* The FBI need not show probable cause, nor even reasonable grounds to believe, that the person whose records it seeks is engaged in criminal activity.
* The FBI need not have any suspicion that the subject of the investigation is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power.
* The FBI can investigate United States persons based in part on their exercise of First Amendment rights, and it can investigate non-United States persons based solely on their exercise of First Amendment rights.
For example, the FBI could spy on a person because they don't like the books she reads, or because they don't like the web sites she visits. They could spy on her because she wrote a letter to the editor that criticized government policy.
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Reform the Patriot Act |
Section 215
ACLU -- Because Freedom Can't Protect Itself
Section 215 allows someone to be spied on with no need for them to be notified about it either. Makes one wonder are about all the "letter to the editors" content that happens here ... doesn't it? Positively Chilling.
Last night U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.),
who both sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called out the intelligence community in a joint statement.
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Basically, the senators question the effectiveness of the NSA's bulk collection
programs and assert that claims made by intelligence officials "should not simply be accepted at face value."
The bulk collection of email records and phone data are permitted under the "business records" clause in section 215 of the Patriot Act.
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Two Senators Lay Smackdown On Purported Effectiveness Of NSA Domestic Spying Programs
by Michael Kelley, businessinsider.com -- Jul 3, 2013
"We are quite familiar with the bulk email records collection program
that operated under the USA Patriot Act and has now been confirmed by senior intelligence officials. We were very concerned about this program’s impact on Americans’ civil liberties and privacy rights, and we spent a significant portion of 2011 pressing intelligence officials to provide evidence of its effectiveness. They were unable to do so, and the program was shut down that year.
“As we have noted, the Patriot Act’s surveillance authorities are not limited to phone records. In fact, section 215 of the Patriot Act can be used to collect any type of records whatsoever. The fact that Patriot Act authorities were used for the bulk collection of email records as well as phone records underscores our concern that this authority could be used to collect other types of records in bulk as well, including information on credit card purchases, medical records, library records, firearm sales records, financial information and a range of other sensitive subjects. These other types of collection could clearly have a significant impact on Americans’ constitutional rights.
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“We believe that the broader lesson here is that even though intelligence officials may be well-intentioned, assertions from intelligence agencies about the value and effectiveness of particular programs should not simply be accepted at face value by policymakers or oversight bodies any more than statements about the usefulness of other government programs should be taken at face value when they are made by other government officials. It is up to Congress, the courts and the public to ask the tough questions and press even experienced intelligence officials to back their assertions up with actual evidence, rather than simply deferring to these officials’ conclusions without challenging them.
“We look forward to continuing the debate about the effectiveness of the ongoing Patriot Act phone records collection program in the days and weeks ahead.”
Wyden, Udall Statement on the Disclosure of Bulk Email Records Collection Program
wyden.senate.gov -- July 2, 2013
[Source -- Reform the Patriot Act | Section 215 | American Civil Liberties Union www.aclu.org]
ACLU -- Because Freedom Can't Protect Itself