Franken, who opened by acknowledging that unlike most of his colleagues in the Senate, he\u2019s not a lawyer, but according to his research \u201cmost Americans aren\u2019t lawyers\u201d either, said he\u2019d also done research on the Patriot Act and in particular, the \u201croving wiretap\u201d provision that allows the FBI to get a warrant to wiretap a an unnamed target and his or her various and changing cell phones, computers and other communication devices.<\/font><\/p>\n Noting that he received a copy of the Constitution when he was sworn in as a senator, he proceeded to read it to Kris, emphasizing this part: \u201cno 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<\/strong>.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s pretty explicit language,\u201d noted Franken, asking Kris how the \u201croving wiretap\u201d provision of the Patriot Act can meet that requirement if it doesn\u2019t require the government to name its target.<\/font><\/p>\n Kris looked flustered and mumbled that \u201cthis is surreal<\/strong>,\u201d apparently referring to having to respond to Franken\u2019s question… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Inserted from <Washington Independent<\/a>><\/p>\n How dare Franken have the nerve to quote the Constitution to a power hungry bureaucrat?!!? Seriously, abusing our Constitutional rights is wrong, no matter who does it. Do I trust Obama not to abuse this power? I do. Do I trust his successor? Hell No!! Obama promised to restore to the American people the rights abused under Bush and the GOP. I guess we need to hold his feet to the fire on this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another area in which I am disappointed in the Obama administration is their desire to hold onto some of the executive power that the Bush regime shredded our Constitution to acquire. A prime example of this is the provisions of the misnamed PATRIOT Act that are nearing sunset. Just in case he wasn\u2019t familiar with […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Patriot-Act\"](\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202009\/FrankenDefendstheFourth_1F58\/PatriotAct.gif\" "\\"Patriot-Act\\"")
<\/a> Just in case he wasn\u2019t familiar with it, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) decided to read the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution to David Kris, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department\u2019s National Security Division, who was testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee today to urge reauthorization of expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act.<\/font><\/p>\n