US senator seeks review of Patriot Act amid surveillance report

A Democratic senator called on Sunday for a review of the Patriot Act, the post-September 11, 2001, law that gave U.S. intelligence agencies broader powers of data surveillance, after disclosures the government has been collecting massive amounts of data on phone and Internet activities.

Senator Mark Udall, a member of the Intelligence Committee, said he thought another look at the law was warranted as reports of the data collection stirred a debate over privacy rights in the United States.

"I think we ought to reopen the Patriot Act and put some limits on the amount of data that the National Security (Agency) is collecting," Udall told the ABC program "This Week."

Udall said there must be a balance between protecting the country against terrorist attacks and respecting Americans' constitutional rights, including the Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful search and seizure.

"It ought to remain sacred, and there's got to be a balance here. That is what I'm aiming for. Let's have the debate, let's be transparent, let's open this up," he said. "I don't think the American public knows the extent or knew the extent to which they were being surveilled and their data was being collected."

The Guardian reported last week that the super-secret National Security Agency has been mining phone records from millions of American customers of a subsidiary of Verizon Communications.

The Washington Post revealed a separate program, code-named Prism, that gives federal authorities access to data from companies including Google Inc., Apple Inc and Facebook Inc on emails, photos and other files.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky told "Fox News Sunday" he would consider a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the phone surveillance program.

"They are looking at a billion phone calls a day from what I read in the press and that doesn't sound to me like a modest invasion of privacy, it sounds like an extraordinary invasion of privacy," Paul said.

But two senior lawmakers defended the Obama administration's phone and Internet surveillance programs, saying they have helped to prevent attacks on the United States and have been subjected to strict reviews.

"These programs are within the law," said Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told "This Week."

"Part of our obligation is keeping Americans safe," added Feinstein. "Human intelligence isn't going to do it."

Republican Mike Rogers, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, agreed with Feinstein that the programs were important for national security.

"One of the things that we're charged with is keeping America safe and keeping our civil liberties and privacy intact. I think we have done both in this particular case," he said.

Republican Senator John McCain told CNN he believed the surveillance programs were justified because threats to the United States from abroad have been "growing, not diminishing."

"I do believe that if this was September 12th, 2001, we might not be having the argument that we are having today," McCain said.

But the Arizona senator said it made sense for Congress to review the programs. "I think it's entirely appropriate that we have congressional review, that we have executive review. And we take the case to the American people to some degree as so what we are doing," he said.

© Thomson Reuters 2013