US senators bid to force government to reveal secret surveillance rulings | World news | theguardian.com
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/11/us-senators-government-secret-court-surveillance?guni=Article:in+body%2
JUIN 2013
A bipartisan group of eight senators will introduce a bill on Tuesday that would force the government to reveal how it interprets the laws underpinning the massive surveillance programs revealed by the Guardian.
The bill by Senator Jeff Merkley (Democrat, Oregon), which his office said it planned to introduce to the Senate on Tuesday, would force the government to disclose the opinions of a secretive surveillance court that determines the scope of the eavesdropping on Americans’ phone records and internet communications.
The bill has the support of senators Mike Lee (Republican, Utah), Patrick Leahy (Democrat, Vermont), Dean Heller (Republican, Nevada), Mark Begich (Democrat, Alaska), Al Franken (Democrat, Minnesota), Jon Tester (Democrat, Montana) and Ron Wyden (Democrat, Oregon).
Specifically, the bill would compel the first public airing of the so-called Fisa court’s understandings of section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the government has cited as the basis for collecting the phone records of millions of Americans; and section 702 of the 2008 Fisa Amendments Act, which the government has cited as the basis for the NSA internet monitoring program known as Prism.
