The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is weighing fresh concern about the sweeping nature of domestic spying using one controversial section of the Patriot Act. This particular part of that law is notable because it has been divisive for years, and because over that time period President Obama has quietly moved from a Senator skeptical of the provisions to an enthusiastic spy chief whose Administration embraces them.

Last Tuesday the committee met to consider the worries of some members, mostly Democrats, who say the Justice Department has drafted a breathtakingly broad interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

That section allows the FBI to seize without a warrant “any tangible things,” such as papers or documents, so long as they are part of an effort to protect the country against international terrorism. The FBI can order a private company to turn over data as long as the bureau can convince a special national-security court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, that the information is “relevant” to antiterrorism work.

Obama Administration officials emphasize that this review by the intelligence court is an important step in protecting privacy. Privacy advocates, however, consider it little more than a rubber stamp. “‘Relevant’ means some noncrazy reason for asking for it,” said the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez, who believes the government is using that authority to sweep up huge amounts of communications data.

The Intelligence Committee met in secret, and members are not permitted to say anything about the deliberations. Senator Ron Wyden did tell TIME that the Justice Department opinion made the broad authority in Section 215 really broad. “When you read that opinion, the classified opinion — that I can’t say a word about — and you set it down next to the text of the law, there is a big gap,” he explained. “That is what this issue is all about.” (The American Civil Liberties Union announced last month that it was seeking the opinion through the Freedom of Information Act and would sue to get it.)

READ MORE: TIME