Say No to Blankets

The last couple of days have been fast, a little confusing and very confounding for us here at the ACLU. As you know, Congress did a very bad thing in August by passing the Protect America Act, which granted our government the authority to wiretap ANYONE, including US citizens, without court approval. Jane Harman has loudly complained they were scared into passing this bill by the Administration which issued a whisper campaign to convince members of the House and Senate that there was an imminent threat to the Capitol itself. Leader Pelosi directed house members to get busy, fixing the problem.

What’s come down the pike is the RESTORE Act (Responsible Electronic Surveillance that is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective Act of 2007), introduced by John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Sylvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee which provides for a number of safeguards and auditing provisions for American citizens, but also introduces what are called “blanket” or “umbrella” orders for surveillance that cover a whole class of targets rather than individual warrants for individual targets.

This concept of bundling people under one warrant is not new. In fact, it’s something the British did to Americans suspected of smuggling back in the 1760s that caused riots and the political upheaval that led to the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. For starters!

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution was drawn up to deal with this very issue. The Founding Fathers wanted to make sure that King George III’s blanket warrants, or Writs of Assistance would be a thing of the past.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

THIS is why blanket warrants are so abhorrent to the ACLU and why we cannot fully support the RESTORE Act. We’re being asked to trust a government that has lied to its people and a Congress that has abdicated its responsibility to uphold the Constitution.

Our lobbyist on FISA has advised us the hope is to get individualized warrants added to the Manager’s Amendment, which is the bill rewritten by the original sponsor. We want to put as much pressure on Chairman Conyers to add individualized warrants to the bill before it gets to the floor. If we end up getting an amendment on the floor of the House, we won’t win the vote.

The bill is now scheduled to be on the House floor next Wednesday.

There are many Democratic Judiciary committee members from Southern CA:

Howard Berman
Maxine Waters
Linda Sanchez
Brad Sherman
Adam Schiff

We need to put the pressure on these members to go to Conyers and ask him to change the bill to include individualized warrants instead of allowing basket warrants.

We will be calling on our supporters in the coming days to help us lobby for the Fourth Amendment. We believe the safety of our Constitution is not at odds with the safety of our country. After all, our Constitution IS our country.

— Susanne Savage, Oct 11, 11:36 AM   

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