A bipartisan effort to declassify key federal court opinions justifying domestic surveillance of American citizens is dead on arrival, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat said Tuesday.
"I encourage this, though I think it is going to be ill-fated," Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said of the bill being spearheaded by Oregon Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." Thomas Jefferson
"If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress, and don’t trust federal judges, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here." - Barack Obama, June 7, 2013