Sen. Al Franken is the sponsor of legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate late last week that would give binational same-sex couples the same rights as married couples for immigration purposes. The Uniting American Families Act is authored by Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont and is sponsored by 18 other Democrats.

Even though same-sex marriage is legal in seven jurisdictions in the United States, couples in which one partner is not a citizen do not have any right under current federal law.

The bill would make immigration laws equal for same-sex couples, including allowing same-sex partners of refugees and asylum seekers to immigrate to the United States. It also provides for the same penalties for same-sex couples who misrepresent their relationships for immigration purposes as current law does for married couples.

The bill makes provisions for same-sex couples to provide documentation of their partnership.

“A core tenet of our immigration policy is preserving family unity. Yet gay and lesbian Americans are still forced to choose between their country and being with those they love,” said Leahy in a statement. “I hear from Vermont couples who face this difficult decision every year. No American should face such a choice. I hope that my colleagues who supported this important civil rights reform will join me in calling for fairness and equality in our immigration laws.”

In addition to Franken and Leahy, the bill is sponsored by Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Robert Casey (D-Pa.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), John Kerry (D-Mass.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Photos: The UpTake

Minnesotans disgusted by insipid Twins-Yankees TV commentators might find comic relief in civil libertarians’ online kibbitzing about U.S. Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, who last week voted to renew the Patriot Act without reforms in the Senate Judiciary Committee. In so doing, Minnesota’s senators committed the legislative equivalent of calling a plainly fair ball foul or overrunning third base. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) singles out Franken for forgetting the very Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution with which he so recently bludgeoned an Obama Administration witness before the same committee:

A special disappointment at yesterday’s hearing was freshman Senator Al Franken’s vote for the bill, which amongst other things renewed PATRIOT’s “roving” “John Doe” wiretap authority allowing the government to get a wiretapping order that doesn’t name the wiretapping target or specify the phone lines and email accounts to be wiretapped. Just two weeks ago, Senator Franken was lecturing a Justice Department official on how the Fourth Amendment requires that search warrants specify with particularity the persons and places to be searched. He was right, then; he was wrong, yesterday.

EFF has Klobuchar, a co-sponsor of the Patriot Act–renewal bill, delivering an unwitting punchline in the tragicomic defeat of new limits to the far-reaching law:

Another sad but humorous moment of disappointment came from Senator Klobuchar, who opposed Senator Durbin’s amendment to ensure that the FBI only use National Security Letters to obtain records related to a spy or terrorist. Thinking that she was reading the text of the bill that she was about to vote for, Klobuchar recited instead Senator Durbin’s proposal to defend the reasonableness of the NSL standard in the bill. In other words … Senator Klobuchar praised the NSL standard in Durbin’s amendment immediately before she voted to help kill it.

Irregular Times piles on: “Klobuchar … does not keep her mouth shut, even when to do so might be in her best interest. … Nobody would have known that she didn’t understand the legislation in front of her if she hadn’t decided, seemingly on the spur of the moment, to speak up.”

This is Irregular Times’ transcript of Klobuchar’s unwarranted speechifying (watch video here, starting at 95:00):

KLOBUCHAR: Yeah, thank you, um, Mr. Chairman, and I, I agree with you Mr. Chairman, and, uh, Senator Sessions, in opposing the amendment. And I would just point to the actual language in here, which is, uh it’s not like this is some pie in the sky standard here. I mean, it specifically says that there has to be, for this letter to issue, “reasonable grounds to believe that the information sought is relevant to an authorized national security investigation provided that such an investigation of the United States person is not conducted solely on the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and pertain to a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, is relevant to the activities of a suspected agent of a foreign power who is subject of such authorized investigation, or pertains to an individual in contact with, or known to, a suspected agent of a foreign power.”

So I just, for anyone listening to this, it is not like there is no standard! There is a standard in place here.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: That’s the standard that is in the bill now?

KLOBUCHAR: [nod and smile]

SEN. DICK DURBIN: Senator, that’s the standard of the amendment. It’s not in the bill now.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Clerk will call the roll.

DURBIN: Mr. Chairman, can I have a moment?

LEAHY: Senator Durbin.

DURBIN: I’d like to make that point to Senator Klobuchar!

LEAHY: Oh, I’d like to make it very clear, I’m not going to cut off anybody who wants to, obviously, I…

DURBIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s rare we get a chance to talk about issues of this gravity, and I think we ought to take a few moments to do it. And I would say to Senator Klobuchar, you just read my amendment, and I think it’s critically important that you understand what we’re establishing here.

Wisconsin is the only other state with both its senators on the Judiciary Committee. That state’s Sen. Russ Feingold, a leading Patriot Act reformer, took to the Daily Kos web pages with a post titled “It’s Not the Prosecutors’ Committee, It’s the Judiciary Committee” after the committee voted down his alternative Justice Act.

Feingold is too polite to call out his neighbor-state colleagues in his blog post.

Sen. Patrick Leahy. Photo: WDCpix

Republicans and Democrats have been sniping about the USA Patriot Act ever since Congress passed the law in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks to try to forestall another such disaster. But now, it’s the Democrats who are sniping among themselves about it. While some lawmakers, like Sens. Russ Feingold and Dick Durbin, have insisted that Congress must amend the law to rein in the FBI’s powers to snoop into innocent private activities, other Democratic lawmakers, such as Senators Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy, have resisted significant reforms.

Three provisions of the law will expire by the end of this year if they’re not renewed, and have been the subject of recent hearings. Those are: the “roving wiretap” provision, which allows the government to tap  phones and other electronic devices used by any person suspected of involvement in terrorism; section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the government to obtain a broad range of business records and other tangible things, including library records, subscription information and credit card statements, so long as the FBI shows these are “relevant” to some terrorist investigation; and the so-called “lone wolf” provision, which allows the government to wiretap any suspect believed to be involved in terrorism, even if that person has no connection to any known terrorist organization.

The other controversial provisions include the FBI’s authority to issue National Security Letters, or NSLs, which seek a broad range of information from businesses about their customers but do not require a warrant or any other court order; and the “sneak and peak law”, which allows the FBI to search a suspect’s home without informing the target that they’ve been searched.

Civil liberties advocates insist these provisions are all too broad as currently written, and allow the FBI to abuse its authority to conduct wide-scale “data mining” of the general population, searching innocent people’s records and personal information while the government tries to root out wrongdoing. Because in many cases it’s not clear how the government is using its broad authority and who gets access to the information, privacy advocates worry that the government could retain such information and use it in ways unconnected to terrorism investigations.

A 2007 report from the FBI Inspector General concluded that the FBI had issued almost 150,000 NSL requests between 2003 and 2005, often collecting information about people not even suspected of having done anything illegal. The Inspector General also found that the FBI’s record-keeping was so poor that it often didn’t know how many letters it has issued, and requested information it wasn’t entitled to receive.

Advocates worry that many sections of the Patriot Act allow similar abuses. “The concern is that the changes the Patriot Act made were such that so long as the FBI agent certifies that the information they’re seeking is relevant to a terror investigation, they can get it,” explained Farhana Khera, Executive Director of Muslim Advocates, which recently sued the government for more information about FBI surveillance practices. “We argue that’s way too broad. It should be tied to a suspected terrorist or terrorist activity.” The FBI’s current authority “has unleashed concerns about the FBI getting access to data on literally millions and millions of Americans,” she said.

Advocates for Muslim-Americans also worry that the laws are being used to target and harass law-abiding American muslims, landing them on no-fly lists, preventing them from getting hired for federal jobs, or deterring them from contributing to legal charitable organizations that assist needy Muslims in other countries.

To address these problems, in mid-September, Feingold and Durbin, both of whom have long expressed concerns about the Patriot Act, introduced the JUSTICE Act (Judiciously Using Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts), which would renew section 215 and the roving wiretap provisions, but would require the government to provide more justification for using them, and to specify more clearly the targets of their investigation.

The bill would also rein in the FBI’s authority to issue National Security Letters by requiring the government to specify what it’s looking for and how the information is relevant to an ongoing national security investigation. Meanwhile, it would repeal the part of the FISA Amendments Act that immunized telecommunications companies such as AT&T that assisted the government in its warrantless wiretapping program.

But a week later, to the dismay of many civil libertarians, Sen. Leahy introduced the USA Patriot and Sunset Extension Act. Cosponsored by Sens. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), it would extend the expiring provisions with only minor modifications, and would leave the “lone wolf” and “roving wiretap” provisions intact. It also would not include any reforms to the FISA Amendments Act.

By the time of the Senate markup session last week, Sen. Leahy, the Judiciary Committee Chairman, had produced a substitute version of his bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Intelligence subcommittee. This bill became the basis for the markup, effectively destroying the chances for adoption of the JUSTICE bill, although pieces of it could still be introduced as amendments.

Civil liberties advocates quickly expressed their disappointment. The American Civil Liberties Union called it “a watered-down version” of the original Leahy bill. Kevin Bankston of Electronic Frontier Foundation similarly described it as having “even fewer PATRIOT reforms than the original Leahy bill.”  Although Feingold and Durbin offered amendments, the only one that succeeded was one amending the “sneak and peak” provision. The amendment would require the government to notify the subject of a search within seven days, instead of 30, as the law stands now. An amendment offered by Senator Durbin to narrow the broad Section 215 powers, which now allows the government to gain access to “any tangible thing,” failed.

Even Sen. Al Franken, who at the recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing took the time to read the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Justice Department official David Kris, voted to support the Leahy-Feinstein substitute bill, and against the Durbin and Feingold amendments.

Feingold has repeatedly expressed concern that the government is not providing enough information for the public to know how the Patriot Act is being used.

“I remain concerned that critical information about the implementation of the Patriot Act remains classified,” said Feingold at a recent hearing, noting that he believes that much of that classified information “would have a significant impact on the debate.” Although the Justice Department recently acknowledged that the “lone wolf” authority has never been used, said Feingold, “there also is information about the use of Section 215 orders that I believe Congress and the American people deserve to know.”

Some representatives in the House, where they’re also debating changes to the Patriot Act and will eventually put forward their own bill, feel the same way. Earlier this week, Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking for more information about how Section 215 orders have been used to help inform the House debate. (Eventually, the House and Senate bills to amend the Patriot Act will have to be reconciled before they go to the President for his signature.)

Although Feinstein has cited classified information as her reason for supporting the re-authorization of section 215 as is, Feingold disagrees. The Feingold amendment would have limited what kinds of records could be obtained under section 215, and required that the government show that those records are related either to terrorist activities, or to people in contact with a terrorist.

Interestingly, notes Michelle Richardson, legislative consultant to the ACLU, during the Patriot Act reauthorization process in 2005, “Democrats and Republicans supported amendments to section 215 to limit it to terrorist activities,” she said. “But now they don’t.”

The problem with reauthorizing many of these provisions, says Richardson, is that “we don’t know what information they’re getting, how much, and who has access,” she said. “But we believe that anytime you get the information, it’s a violation. These are principles over 200 years old in this country, that government should not be getting this information about you unless they have reason to believe you’ve done something wrong.”

That principle is increasingly being discarded. Attorney General Guidelines issued at the end of the Bush administration, for example, eliminated the requirement that the FBI must have reason to believe the target of an investigation has committed a crime before initiating that investigation.

“Who knows if the information comes back to haunt you,” said Richardson. “If you apply for federal student aid, for a federal job, or end up on a no-fly list. We don’t know who has access to the information, and where it’s supposed to go. That’s not how things are supposed to work in this country.”

On Thursday, the markup session will continue in the Senate Judiciary Committee, as specifics on the bill get hammered out. Much of the critical information necessary to determine how it’s working, though, will remain secret.

It’s a training exercise for junior senators to sit in as president; according to spokeswoman Jess McIntosh, this was Franken’s second stint with the gavel.

And today he used it — rapping the rostrum to interrupt Sen. Jeff Sessions and announce the order of speakers: Sessions, Sen. Patrick Leahy,  Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Harry Reid.

For a guy who only a week or two ago didn’t seem to know how to get a committee chair’s attention or put a document into the record, Franken displayed considerable parliamentary aplomb this afternoon, authoritatively intoning such standard utterances as ”The clerk will call the roll,” “Without objection,” and “The Senate will suspend the rules.”

Sens. Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy (WDCpix)

After announcing that he’d be switching parties, longtime Republican Sen. Arlen Specter met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to discuss committee powers, according to the Washington Independent.

Democratic leadership, Specter told reporters Tuesday, will allow him to be seated on committees as if he’d entered the upper chamber in 1980 as a Democrat rather than a Republican. That means Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy would remain at the helm of the Senate Judiciary Committee (where Specter was the senior Republican until today) and would also outrank Specter on the powerful Appropriations Committee. No deal has been struck over whether he’ll assume the chair of the Appropriations Committee’s subpanel on labor, health and education, which Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa now holds.

But David Waldman at DailyKos suggests another message to Specter’s former party:

Seat Al Franken and give him his committee assignments now, or we’ll block a new organizing resolution that would let you reassign Specter’s previously Republican committee seats to one of your own.

Alberto Gonzales (WDCpix)

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will cooperate with a “truth commission” proposed by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy to look into possible unlawful conduct by the Bush administration, the Washington Independent reports. This morning reporter David Weigel caught up with Gonzales after a forum on Republicans and the Hispanic vote and posed the question.

Gonzales’ reply:

“My view has always been to be as cooperative as possible, and that’s what I’ve been with respect to everything. As far as I’m concerned I’ve got nothing to hide and I’ll cooperate. Every time I’ve been asked to cooperate, I’ve cooperated. In terms of what happens in the future, I’m not going to comment on that, but that is what I’ve done in the past.

“I think only a fool would be unconcerned about any kind of commission or investigation in this political town and in this political climate. Having said that, again, because I feel like I’ve got nothing to hide and I’ve done nothing wrong, I’m not worried about the truth, so long as what we’re talking about is the truth and things don’t become politicized.”

Related: Talk of Truth Commission sparks conflict