Monday, June 10, 2013

Colorado's Sen. Mark Udall says U.S. surveillance tramples rights



(Denver Post) Colorado Sen. Mark Udall said Sunday it is time to re-examine how far the U.S. government can legally go in its search for terrorists.

On CNN's "State of the Union," Udall, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for a reassessment of the USA Patriot Act following controversial media accounts of the Obama administration's collection of telephone metadata and Internet communications.

He said he had seen no evidence the programs are worth the sacrifice of civil liberties.

"It's unclear to me that we've developed any intelligence through the metadata program that's led to the disruption of plots that we couldn't have developed through other data and other intelligence," Udall said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that the telephone and internet surveillance programs had helped stop Najibullah Zazi, the airport shuttle driver from Aurora, in a 2009 terror plot to bomb New York City subways.

"I can tell you, in the Zazi case in New York, it's exactly the program that was used," Rogers said. "I think the Zazi case is so important, because that's one you can specifically show that this was the key piece that allowed us to stop a bombing in the New York subway system."

Feinstein said she was open to public hearings on intelligence gathering. Udall said he welcomed the public discussion.

"Maybe Americans think this is OK," he said. "But I think the line has been drawn too far towards 'we're going to invade your privacy' rather than 'we're going to respect your privacy.' "

The Democrat from Boulder County has raised the issue of rights and security for some time. He said Sunday the war on terrorism should not come at the expense of Americans' rights.

"I come from this at the start acknowledging terrorism is a real threat, that we have to protect the American people," Udall said on the Sunday morning news show. "At the same time I also believe the Bill of Rights is one of the most powerful tools, or even weapons, we have in this fight."

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