Domestic Spying Scandal: WomenMatter Combs through Congressional Testimony so YOU don't have to

Hey, remember the Patriot Act? That controversial law glorified by 24 and critiqued on The View ? (It's not just The Donald that yanks Rosie's chain.)

The Patriot Act allows the FBI to access your phone records, bank and credit accounts, email, and other sensitive personal information without permission from a grand jury, judge, or even a prosecutor.

Well, committees in the House and Senate have reviewed the law and heard testimony about the FBI's abuse of its powers.

WomenMatter has combed through 100+ pages of testimony so you don't have to, and here's what's going on:

• The FBI submitted 143,000 requests for personal information -- called national security letters - between 2003 and 2005.
• 100 percent of national security letters (NSLs) reviewed by the inspector general have violations. (He's only reviewed 77 though.)
• 60 percent of NSLs are missing important documentation. (Insert conspiracy theory here.)

Raise your eyebrow: exigent letters

What the heck are exigent letters?

Basically they're fake national security letters that the FBI wrote to telephone companies. Yeah. Take some time to let that soak in.................. The FBI basically tricked the phone companies into giving out somebody's personal information.

Patrick Leahy (The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee) explained it this way: "Basically, they told the telephone companies, 'this is an emergency, so give us these records, voluntarily, without the regular process.' And they went on to say, subpoenas requesting this information had been submitted to the Attorney's Office, who will process them". [but] no subpoenas had been submitted."

So, why isn't this huge news? Maybe people are used to the FBI doing sketchy things; maybe the news media is too consumed with Britney Spears' hair (or lack thereof); or maybe people are afraid to criticize the Patriot Act for fear of being called unpatriotic.

Whatever the reason, this is important stuff. It demands our attention whether we're Democrat, Republican, woman, or man.

Who's to blame?

The short answer is nobody really knows. The Inspector General said that every FBI employee would need to be questioned to figure it out. You could say that's hogwash, but there is something to what he says.

Many say the power structure at the Pentagon is political and convoluted and set up in such a way that no single person is responsible for something like that. In other words, the power is spread out and cut thin and departmentalized and bureaucracized and it keeps individuals insulated from blame. Is that an excuse? NO! But if you've ever worked in cubicle land, you understand.

The phone companies could take some of the blame, and also Congress. As Leahy himself pointed out, Congress expanded the scope of information that the FBI could request.

But the FBI itself should certainly take the brunt of this one, because even after their Office of General Counsel became aware of the abuses in 2004, they continued until 2006.

Sneak and Peak

This isn't the place to go over the basic Patriot Act arguments -- but the terrorists! But our civil liberties! -- but if you want to revisit them, here they are.

However, the women of Womenmatter would like to point out something interesting. The House Judiciary Committee never really wanted the Patriot Act to look the way it does now.

After 9-11, when Congress was faced with terrorism for the first time on a large scale, the (then Republican-led) committee created a bipartisan compromise that won a 36-0 vote. However, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft found the House version of the bill to be too weak on the law enforcement side, so the Rules Committee rewrote the bill to include its now famous "sneak and peek" provision, which allows the government to search people's homes without notice.

What do we do?

What should Congress do about this? Both judiciary committees agree that the FBI broke the law. How should they go about a "punishment"? Would firing a couple of people really do anything? What new laws should they create, if any?

Put your zip code in here to find your representative. Then complain, or applaud, or whatever!

About WomenMatter

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