October 8, 2009 / by emptywheel

 

Franken’s Fleeting Fourth Amendment

Remember this stunt? It was just two weeks ago that Al Franken was reading the Fourth Amendment to David Kris. Franken made a good point about how you should identify individuals before collecting their data.

Of course, two weeks later, Franken voted with eight other Democrats to continue to allow the government to collect information–things like shopping histories–about people without first identifying whose information they want to collect. Just collect a list of everyone in Aurora, CO who bought acetone, Franken seems to be saying, and too bad for the guy with an Arabic name who becomes an FBI target because he’s painting his house.

Just two weeks later and it seems someone needs to give Franken the lesson he was trying to give Kris.

Copyright © 2009 emptywheel. All rights reserved.
Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2009/10/08/frankens-fleeting-fourth-amendment/