Tornado Alley (PROG)

[ergo sum]

From his perch on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Udall has sounded alarms, written letters to Cabinet members, sponsored bills, threatened to hold up confirmations and even personally engaged President Barack Obama about his increasing sense of alarm that the federal government was trampling Americans' constitutional rights.

The first-term Democrat said Thursday that he was well aware the federal government was broadly monitoring Americans' phone and e-mail communications and he did "everything short of leaking classified information" to try and bring attention to the issue.

Information he has gleaned from the highly secretive intelligence committee has, he said, provided him an education into the programs that he finds "shocking."

"I've learned a great deal more about our surveillance laws and how they've been implemented," he said in a Senate floor speech in December. "Terrorism has forced us to have a conversation about our civil liberties and our threats.

"We must, as the federal government and the protectors of our Constitution, protect the constitutional liberties of the American people and live up to the transparency that our democracy demands. ... We need to balance the civil liberties in our Constitution with our ongoing fight against terrorists."

Udall, along with Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, stand out on the Intelligence Committee as consistent, sharp watchdogs criticizing intelligence-gathering techniques and challenging a Democratic president.

Even on Thursday, as news of the expanded snooping unfolded, fellow members of the Intelligence Committee, Democrats and Republicans alike, called the targeting lawful.

Udall called it stunning.

"It's the sort of surveillance that would long shock Americans if they knew about it," he said.

Last year, Udall asked the director of the National Security Agency to tell him the number of Americans who had communications monitored by the federal government.

The director said he couldn't give him an answer.

"I find this hard ... to believe that the director of national intelligence ... can't come up with a ballpark estimate," Udall said in a speech before the December vote to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Udall didn't support. "This is disconcerting. Our concern about numbers is this, if no one has estimated the number, it's possible the number could be quite large."

Udall wouldn't say Thursday whether he knew about the massive scope in surveillance when he was pressing these questions or whether he just wanted the public to understand what was happening.

"I think the most important thing to focus on right now is that the administration made commitments to being transparent," Udall said. "President Obama said he was going to submit to transparency in the State of the Union. I expect him to uphold his commitment."

White House officials said Thursday the massive dragnet of communications and call records and e-mails were all collected legally.

"The president welcomes a discussion of the trade-offs between security and civil liberties," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

Colorado's House Republicans also criticized the Obama administration Thursday, saying they were concerned the federal government was using a law written primarily to target terrorists to unfairly sweep up massive tomes of data about innocent Americans.

"Such an intentionally general and suspicionless collection of citizens' private data is troubling, to say the least," said a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller signed by a dozen House Republicans, including Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez.

Udall said he will continue to push transparency and setting parameters in sweeping domestic surveillance laws so Americans don't have to "rely on the goodwill of future administrations" to do the right thing.

"There are many ways to protect Americans," he said. "There are many ways of protecting Americans' constitutional rights. ... We need to find a balance."

Allison Sherry: 202-662-8907, [e-mail] or twitter.com/allisonsherry



Read more: Sen. Mark Udall's warnings on federal domestic spying have their day - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_23406958/sen-mark-udalls-warnings-federal-domestic-spying-have#ixzz2W0Un7x00
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