Patrick Leahy versus the NSA

The man who tried to stand up to the Joker in The Dark Knight is now standing up to another bully. The difference is that this particular bully, the NSA, isn’t fictional and clearly much more dangerous than the Joker.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the powerful chairman of the chamber’s Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday strongly endorsed a series of sweeping restrictions on U.S. surveillance programs — from ending the bulk collection of Americans’ phone call logs to creating new oversight mechanisms to keep the National Security Agency in check.

In a speech at Georgetown University Law Center, the Vermont Democrat said the government “has not made its case” that the ability to collect Americans’ phone records en masse under the PATRIOT Act is “an effective counterterrorism tool, especially in light of the intrusion on Americans’ privacy rights.”