I think by now it must be clear republicans are simply hypocrites when it comes to the US Constitution.
'House GOP Rejects Requirement That PATRIOT Act Surveillances Be Conducted in Compliance With Constitution'
by John Nichols
"Less than a month after making a show of reading the U.S. Constitution into the Congressional Record, the leaders of the Republican-controlled U.S. House engineered a vote to extend the surveillance authorities that both the Bush and Obama administrations have used to conduct roving surveillance of communications, to collect and examine business records and to target individuals who are not tied to terrorist groups for surveillance."
House GOP Rejects Requirement That PATRIOT Act Surveillances Be Conducted in Compliance With Constitution | Common Dreams
though I agree with you on two points, I don't see a Constitutional Problem. We would have been better off, had Privacy been viewed as both an Unalienable and Constitutional Right, in many ways, it is not. I would support Strengthening Individual Liberties, that is the core of our Value as a Nation.
These Powers do seem to have Constitutional Authority, be it legitimate or an abuse of Power. Tyranny was perceived as a Threat since conception, that has not changed for the better. I'd support an Overhaul of those Powers, Oversight, Transparency, and Accountability, as Qualification for Extraordinary Powers.
Check out This Site.....
Let the Sun Set on PATRIOT - Section 206:
"Roving Surveillance Authority Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978"
In March 2006, the sunsetting provisions were renewed. Read here for analysis.
What Section 206 Does
Imagine that the FBI could, with a single search warrant, raid every house or office that an individual suspect has visited over an entire year - every single place, whether or not the residents themselves are suspects. Suppose that the FBI could do this without ever having to identify the suspect in question. This is what Section 206 allows in the communications context. Section 206 authorizes intelligence investigators to conduct "John Doe" roving surveillance - meaning that the FBI can wiretap every single phone line, mobile communications device or Internet connection that a suspect might be using, without ever having to identify the suspect by name. This gives the FBI a "blank check" to violate the communications privacy of countless innocent Americans. What\'s worse, these blank-check wiretap orders can remain in effect for up to a year.
How Section 206 Changed the Law
Section 206 amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) so that a wiretap order issued by the secret FISA court no longer has to specify what type of communications that the order applies to. This allows investigators to engage in "roving" surveillance, using a single wiretap order to listen in on any phone line or monitor any Internet account that a suspect may be using - whether or not other people who are not suspects also regularly use it.
Why Section 206 Should Sunset
Roving wiretaps are allowed in regular criminal investigations, so it might seem reasonable that the PATRIOT Act made them available to intelligence investigators. But FISA wiretaps lack many of the safeguards that prevent abuse of criminal wiretaps. For example, orders are issued using a lower legal standard than the "probable cause" used in criminal cases, are subject to substantially less judicial oversight and typically last at least three times longer than criminal wiretaps. Surveillance targets are never notified that they were spied on. Most important, and also unlike criminal wiretaps, the FISA court can issue "John Doe" wiretaps that don\'t even specify the surveillance target\'s name.
The bottom line: further relaxing controls on FISA surveillance by adding roving capability is a recipe for abuse and likely violates the Fourth Amendment\'s requirement that search warrants "particularly describ[e] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
EFF: Sunset Section 206
