A victory for personal privacy

Congress will this week force the president to end his illegal collection of all American phone records. This is a victory for defenders of privacy.

The Fourth Amendment requires that government searches be individualized. Collecting all Americans’ phone records all the time indiscriminately is what our Founders fought against when they objected to general warrants.

Some will ask: But how will we catch terrorists without this program? My reply: with the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment allows probing searches as long as the request is for an individual’s records and as long as there is probable cause of a crime.

I don’t object to collecting as many records as necessary to catch terrorists. In fact, I want to collect more records from terrorists and less from innocent, suspicion-less Americans.

President Obama’s illegal collection of all of our phone records has not made us safer. Between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk data collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act — yet law enforcement cannot point to a single foiled terrorist plot.

The “lone wolf ” provision seen by pro-surveillance officials as critical to the fight against terror has never been used in a single investigation.

The president’s own review group found the program was “not essential to preventing attacks” and the information “could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional (court) orders.”

My filibuster sought a compromise. I requested votes on two amendments to require that warrants only be issued to individuals and that evidence collected under the Patriot Act only be used against terrorists, not for domestic prosecution. I was denied.

Was my filibuster successful? Well, during the delay, 20 Republicans changed their vote to support ending the bulk collection of phone records.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the bulk collection of all American phone records is illegal. The president could have done the right thing and ended this illegal program. Instead, he chose to transfer blame to Congress.

Congress this week will force the president to end this illegal program. For those who cherish the right to be left alone, this is a victory.