We need to know who
I don't blame them. For years, the architecture of the programs designed to keep us safe have been a secret to all but a few members of the intelligence community and select legislators. The companies that were involved in these programs were under strict gag orders. And while members of Congress had the opportunity to be briefed on these programs, it would have been a crime, literally, for us to have talked about them publicly. It was just Snowden and his documents on the one side and the government on the other, saying "trust us."
The government must give proper weight to both keeping America safe from terrorists and protecting cheap north face Americans' privacy. But when Americans lack the most basic information about our domestic surveillance programs, they have no way of knowing whether we're getting that balance right. This lack of transparency is a big problem.
Since I came to the Senate, I've been working to fix this. When those amendments failed, I voted against renewing both of these laws.
I want to be clear: I didn't vote "no" because I wanted to end these programs or because I thought they were unnecessary. Based on briefings, I believe these programs protect our country and have saved lives and north face on clearance have reasonable safeguards in place to protect Americans' privacy. I voted the way I did because I wanted to send a loud signal to my colleagues that transparency was critical and that there was too little of it in place. National security laws must protect national security. But they must also protect the public trust and preserve the ability of an informed electorate to hold its government to account.
My legislation would also allow companies to publicly report on how many Patriot and FISA orders they're getting and how many of their customers these orders affect. There's a way to do this that protects national security. Since 2009, Google has been reporting on the number of national security letters it receives, and that hasn't hurt anyone. I frankly think that after Snowden's disclosures, an even stronger case can be made that we can achieve greater transparency without harming national security.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, a big part of my job is making sure that our privacy laws are keeping up with our technology. In 1787, there was no such thing as a phone, let alone a wiretap. And so, almost 50 years ago in a case called Katz v. The court said that it did. Justices explained that people had come to expect and assume that their calls were private. In subsequent cases, the court formally adopted the rule that the Fourth Amendment will protect people where they have an expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable.
In 2013, we're long overdue for another public conversation about what constitutes a reasonable expectation of privacy. Actually, it's impossible to have that debate.