The battle over the NSA data-mining program has produced some strange bedfellows, even by the standards of politics.
On one hand, you have Republican Congressman Mike Rogers of Howell aligned with President Barack Obama defending the program. On the other hand, a group of mostly Republican lawmakers led by West Michigan's Justin Amash joined with the American Civil Liberties Union to demand greater public access to the special courts that oversee that program.
New York Times: For that reason, 16 members of Congress — a majority of them Republicans — recently filed a supporting brief for a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union to compel the release of declassified versions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s opinions “evaluating the meaning, scope and constitutionality” of the relevant part of the Patriot Act, Section 215.
“We accept that free countries must engage in secret operations from time to time to protect their citizens,” Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, wrote in the brief. “Free countries must not, however, operate under secret laws. Secret court opinions obscure the law. They prevent public debate on critical policy issues and they stop Congress from fulfilling its duty to enact sound laws and fix broken ones.”
The documents sought by the ACLU are made secret by the Patriot Act. Even those congressmen who've been allowed to review them are not allowed to discuss their contents.
