Amendment Requires Government to End Practice of Secretly Interpreting Law

Press Release

As the Senate prepares to approve a four-year extension of the Patriot Act without public debate about how the executive branch actually interprets controversial provisions in the ten-year-old surveillance law, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mark Udall (D-Co.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced an amendment to the Patriot Act reauthorization legislation to require the U.S. Attorney General to make the U.S. Government's official interpretation of the law public.

The amendment also states that it is the "Sense of the Congress" that government officials "should not secretly reinterpret public laws and statutes in a manner that is inconsistent with the public's understanding of these laws and should not describe the execution of these laws in ways that misinforms or misleads the public."

The official interpretation of the Patriot Act -- a bill that was hastily drafted in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and is up for extension this week after little debate and no opportunity to amend it -- has been kept classified by government officials for nearly a decade.

"It is essential for the American public to have access to enough information to determine how government officials are interpreting the law," the amendment reads, "so that voters can ratify or reject decisions that elected officials make on their behalf. It is essential that Congress have informed and open debates about the meaning of existing laws so that members of Congress are able to consider whether laws are written appropriately and so that members of Congress may be held accountable by their constituents."