From the Wayback Machiine:
2004:
The SAFE Act, introduced by former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), would have amended the Patriot Act to require that the government have "specific and articulable facts" to show that a person is an "agent of a foreign power" before seizing their phone records.
The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee in 2005, but never received a vote. It had 15 co-sponsors in all, including then-Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who are now members of Obama’s Cabinet.
Experts said the bill that Obama supported in the Senate would have prohibited the sweeping surveillance that has come to light at the National Security Agency (NSA).
[Please hold the snickering about Larry Craig]
"The bill very much limit[ed] the scope of these secret orders to people who are believed to be bad guys instead of innocent citizens," said Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at The George Washington University. "It was great that Obama sponsored it at the time, and too bad he has abandoned that principle."
Gregory Nojeim, an attorney for the Center for Democracy and Technology, agreed that the SAFE Act would have made the mass NSA collection of phone records illegal.
4 out of 5 laywers agree, this law would have made this surveillance illegal. But does that mean we need a law to make it illegal?
While the Verizon court order was based on a provision of the Patriot Act and only applies to business customers, it may still not be legal.
The Verizon court order was based on Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the government to collect any business records "relevant" to a terrorism investigation.
Rosen argued that even under that loose standard, the data collection of Verizon customers might be illegal.
"That does not seem to justify blanket mass surveillance," he said, adding that the administration should release any legal memos justifying the program.
2008:
And here is candidate Obama in a 2008 speech: (Video
here)
Flashback: Obama Railed Against Monitoring Citizens Who Did Nothing Wrong
“This administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide. I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom. That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA court works. The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.”
As President, he repeated these words and I recall cheering and clapping during the Inauguration Speech upon hearing them.
And today, President Obama defended the NSA's actions as the right balance (but too secret to let us know what is happening).
2013:
In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok," Obama said, without discussing details. "But when you actually look at the details, I think we've struck the right balance."
The problem, of course, is that most of the details are classified, meaning Americans don't know the extent of the warrantless spy program.
It's no longer a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the securities we provide.