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Monday, October 19, 2009
Law - Reading the bills may not be the answer ...
Today Al Kamen's "In the Loop" column in the Washington Post includes this gem:
They call it the World's Greatest Deliberative Body (WGDB), Part I.The Senate Judiciary Committee last week was reviewing an amendment by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) to the USA Patriot Act to clarify the legal standard needed for an investigation under the act. The amendment was intended to provide greater protections from abuse by investigators.
His colleague, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), spoke in opposition, agreeing with committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and ranking Republican Jeff Sessions (Ala.) that additional protections are not needed.
"I would just point to the actual language in here," Klobuchar said, "which is, it's not like this is some pie-in-the-sky standard here. I mean, it specifically says," she noted approvingly, reading aloud from the bill, that there have to be "reasonable grounds to believe that the information sought is relevant to an authorized national security investigation," and you can't investigate someone just for exercising free speech rights and there's got to be some suspected foreign agent involved.
"So I just, for anyone listening to this, it is not like there is no standard," she concluded. "There is a standard in place here."
"That's the standard that is in the bill now?" Sessions asked.
Klobuchar nodded that it was.
No it's not, Durbin interrupted. "Senator Klobuchar, you just read my amendment," not the bill, he said -- "and I think it's critically important that you understand what we're establishing here."
Whatever. Klobuchar voted against the amendment, which got only a handful of votes anyway.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 19, 2009 11:41 AM
Posted to General Law Related