Senate reintroduces bill to reauthorize Patriot Act with no reform

[bemildred]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has a novel idea for how to address the looming problem of the controversial spying provisions in the Patriot Act that are set to expire June 1.

Just reauthorize it all.

McConnell’s short bill, fast-tracked to avoid having to go through committee markup, would “extend authority relating to roving surveillance, access to business records, and individual terrorists as agents of foreign powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and for other purposes.”

The Patriot Act provides the legal basis for a number of the most powerful National Security Agency spying programs revealed in 2013 by former NSA systems administrator Edward Snowden. Those include Section 215, which lets the NSA collect innocent Americans’ phone records in bulk,” and which would be reauthorized under McConnell’s bill.

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/mitch-mcconnell-patriot-act-reauthorization-sans-reform/

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

1. Good, then we can spy on those rightwing assholes and find out which lies they are going to tell

next.

[mike_c]

2. because absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there's rarely any way...

...to walk that back without torches, pitchforks, and guillotines.

[hifiguy]

4. Indeed.

[orpupilofnature57]

6. That's why that ' Check & Balance ' worked so well .

[Kelvin Mace]

3. See, in my book

a genuine liberal would veto this bill.

[orpupilofnature57]

5. As harmful as the TPP, and another thing they agree on, Bad . n/t