March 19, 2012 08:02 PM UTC

Mark Udall Scares The Hell Out Of Us (Again)

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Pueblo Chieftain’s Peter Roper reports:

Colorado Sen. Mark Udall and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden have released a joint letter stating that Americans would be “stunned” to learn how the FBI and the Justice Department are using sections of the Patriot Act to broadly gather intelligence based on secret legal opinions.

Thursday’s letter was an unusual public step for the two Democrats who both serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Their letter is intended to push the Justice Department into revealing secret legal opinions that have been used in the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to justify intelligence-gathering operations.

“We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” the letter to Attorney General Eric Holder said. “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows.”

Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act reportedly concerns authority given to federal law enforcement to investigate business and personal records–in fact, “any tangible thing”–pertinent to anti-terrorism investigations; and, importantly, keeping those investigations secret. Unease over this particular provision has been a part of the debate over anti-terrorism policy since the 9/11 terror attacks, which makes this fresh alarm from Sen. Mark Udall even more unsettling.

So what do you think is going on? Pretend you’re Popular Science and sketch this UFO out.