secret interpretations of laws

When we learn that the public is being misled with secret interpretations of the law, we must take these matters seriously. ... the details of a secret court order can be released just to protect the president, then Americans have the right to know whether their laws and their Constitution are protecting them.

... array of powers C-59 will grant to the Communications Security Establishment -- Canada's answer to the NSA -- an agency already notorious for conducting unconstitutional mass surveillance under colour of a secret interpretation of Canadian law. Secret laws, of course, have no place in a democracy.

And that has led to two parallel efforts: one pushed and supported by the NSA and FBI that would effectively write into the law the secret interpretations and allow things to continue on as currently; and one pushed and supported by privacy advocates and, to a lesser degree, technology companies, which ...

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have hidden from Congress and the American people what they believe surveillance laws – public laws ... (In yet another case of a secret interpretation of law, the so-called “abouts” collection was never knowingly authorized by Congress in the first place.).

However, because these surveillance laws, including the new USA Liberty Act, never mention any criminal sanctions for such abuses, no one has been punished for it. The NSA and DEA ... Instead, the NSA used secret interpretations of the law to expand its own surveillance capabilities. Demand Progress ...

Under international human rights law, the answer is a resounding no – and a lawsuit heard by a federal court in Washington, DC earlier this week may ... should have to guess at whether the government is telling the whole truth or using secret interpretations when it offers assurances – as it recently did in a ...

Although President Obama is often credited for releasing controversial memos written by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration ... Indeed, an inherent conflict of interest exists when the executive branch enacts laws out of the public eye to govern its own actions.

EFF sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the 10th anniversary of the signing of the USA PATRIOT Act in October 2011 for answers about “secret interpretations” of a controversial section of the law. In June 2013, a leaked FISA court order publicly revealed that “secret interpretation”: the government was using Section ...

The release coincided with the latest in a string of strong warnings from two senators about how the government has secretly interpreted the law. ... now that there are two memos from the Office of Legal Counsel (the same Justice Department group that issued the torture memos) relating to Section 215.

This week marks 10 years since the Patriot Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The ACLU is hosting a blog series that will address some of the sweeping changes to surveillance laws over the past decade. To learn more about the Patriot Act, visit www.aclu.org/patriot. Ten years ago ...