The Pot Calling The Kettle An Infringement On Your Civil Liberties

In the ongoing controversy about the NSA gathering information about everyone at every time and at every place, the ACLU recently filed a lawsuit against four of the top officials in the Obama administration.  The case, known as ACLU v. Clapper, asks a federal judge to declare the program, which was recently made public by the ex-patriot Edward Snowden, unlawful, stop the program entirely, and eliminate all record gathered by the program.  On Wednesday, this controversy took an interesting turn.

On Wednesday, Wisconsin representative Jim Sensenbrenner filed an amicus brief with the court in relation to this lawsuit.  In this brief, Rep. Sensenbrenner writes:

"The vast majority of the records collected will have no relation to the investigation of terrorism at all. This collection of millions of unrelated records is built-in to the mass call collection program. Defendants’ theory of “relevance” is simply beyond any reasonable understanding of the word. And it certainly is not what amicus intended the word to mean."

"Defendants do not explain why Congress would have enacted such meaningless provisions. The bulk data collection program is unbounded in its scope. The NSA is gathering on a daily basis the details of every call that every American makes, as well as every call made by foreigners to or from the United States. How can every call that every American makes or receives be relevant to a specific investigation?"

To summarize, in this brief Jim Sensenbrenner makes the case that the NSA mass data collection program is too broad and infringes on a person's civil liberties.  This is an interesting opinion coming from the guy who wrote the Patriot Act.  Yes, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner is the representative who introduced the Patriot Act, a law which some would argue is too broad and infringes on a person's civil liberties.

In other news, Representative Ryan Pot (D-FL), pictured above with the blue background, was overheard engaging in an argument with Senator David Kettle (D-NE), pictured above with the beige background.  The two were arguing about the colour of Sen. Kettle's suit.  Rep. Pot was heard to have said:

"Look, I understand you making that mistake, but the simple fact is, that colour is black.  I don't claim to be an expert in many things, but I do know my colours, and, Ryan, that colour is, without a doubt, black."