The Sun Must Go Down on the Patriot Act

[Commentary] Almost 13 years later, the most egregious part of the Patriot Act, Section 215 -- which underlies the National Security Agency's call-records program -- is scheduled to expire on June 1. Some legislators want Congress to reauthorize it in its current form -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has just introduced a bill that would do exactly that, extending it for another five years. Others want to make relatively minor changes. Congress shouldn't do either of these things. Unless Congress can coalesce around far-reaching reform, it should simply let the provision expire.

Congress hurriedly enacted the Patriot Act just weeks after the September 2001 attacks. Few legislators read the 321 pages of proposed legislation; many simply concluded that the political climate necessitated that they vote for the bill, even if they didn't understand it. Letting the provisions sunset would protect Americans' privacy without compromising security. It would also be a first step towards the kind of systemic reform we desperately need -- reform that would end the government's dragnet surveillance practices, foreclose warrantless surveillance of Americans' communications, require a degree of transparency about programs that haven't yet been disclosed, and subject those as-yet-undisclosed programs to judicial review. Equally important, letting the provisions sunset would send a broader message that, after more than a decade in which national security could be invoked to justify the unconstrained expansion of virtually any government power, Americans are committed to restoring common-sense limits on the government's national security powers and requiring that our intelligence agencies operate without disregard for privacy and civil liberties.

[Anthony Romero is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union]