A bill proposed by Senators Roy Wyden and Mark Udall would require the U.S. intelligence chief to admit to interpreting the Patriot Act to give the government massive domestic surveillance powers not granted by Congress. In a letter last week to Wyden and Udall, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted to the secret legal interpretations and pledged to make the interpretations public.
In their proposal, Wyden and Udall wrote, “It is critical that officials of the United States not secretly reinterpret public laws in a manner that is inconsistent with the public’s understanding of such laws and not describe the execution of such laws in a way that misinforms or misleads the public.” -db
From a commentary in Wired, July 28, 2011, by Spencer Ackerman.