Patriot Act Faces Revisions Backed by Both Parties

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: NY Times

After more than a decade of wrenching national debate over the intrusiveness of government intelligence agencies, a bipartisan wave of support has gathered to sharply limit the federal government’s sweeps of phone and Internet records.

On Thursday, a bill that would overhaul the Patriot Act and curtail the so-called metadata surveillance exposed by Edward J. Snowden was overwhelmingly passed by the House Judiciary Committee and was heading to almost certain passage in that chamber this month.

An identical bill in the Senate — introduced with the support of five Republicans — is gaining support over the objection of Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who is facing the prospect of his first policy defeat since ascending this year to majority leader.

The push for reform is the strongest demonstration yet of a decade-long shift from a singular focus on national security at the expense of civil liberties to a new balance in the post-Snowden era.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/politics/patriot-act-faces-revisions-backed-by-both-parties.html

---

Edward J. Snowden American whistleblower and dissident.

[msongs]

1. how bout just repeal the whole thing? nt

[Jesus Malverde]

6. Or just let it expire.

The bill was sold as a temporary measure. We should hold them to that.

[Suji to Seoul]

2. Jim Sensenbrenner's Constitution destroying wet dream. This act is, was, and always will be

an abomination. It doesn't need to be revised. It needed to be gotten rid of completely!

[Jesus Malverde]

5. Agreed..nt

[merrily]

3. I'll try to be optimistic, but I cannot remember the last time "reform" meant "improvement"

as I see improvement.

[Jesus Malverde]

4. Since the FISA court has been proven to be lap dogs and the data will be retained.

I tend to agree, but it goes to show that the program in concept and execution was flawed.

[merrily]

7. Meh. Republican Justices declaring a couple of provisions unconstitutional pretty much proved the

PA was flawed, as did the record of how many times the FISA court agreed with government.

Welfare reform = ending "welfare as we know it. Social Security reform = chained CPI and using it as a bargaining chip with Boehner and Cantor. And according to some DUers, TPP is Obama's attempt to reform NAFTA.

So not looking forward to more of those kinds of "reforms."

Nice to see you, though, Jesus.

[Jesus Malverde]

8. Stay strong informista

[merrily]

9. Gracias. Si, puedo. (The little engine that could.) nt

[groundloop]

10. Best 'revision' for this Bush era piece-of-shit law is elimination

[Downwinder]

11. Don't revise it, Sunset it!

Get rid of John Ashcroft's pen and ink changes.

[midnight]

12. The civil rights abuses were first warned about by Wis. Senator Fiengold.

unfortunately he was mocked.

"Feingold was trying to amend the Patriot Act, arguing that Section 215, a part of the law core to the NSA controversy, gives the government "extremely broad powers to secretly obtain people's business records." Said Feingold (emphases mine throughout):

The Senate bill would have required that the government prove to a judge that the records it sought had some link to suspected terrorists or spies or their activities. The conference report does not include this requirement. Now, the conference report does contain some improvements to Section 215, at least around the edges. It contains minimization requirements, meaning that the executive branch has to set rules for whether and how to retain and share information about U.S. citizens and permanent residents obtained from the records. And it requires clearance from a senior FBI official before the government can seek to obtain particularly sensitive records like library, gun and medical records.

But the core issue with Section 215 is the standard for obtaining these records in the first place. Neither the minimization procedures nor the high level signoff changes the fact that the government can still obtain sensitive business records of innocent, law-abiding Americans. The standard in the conference report -- "relevance" -- will still allow government fishing expeditions. That is unacceptable."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/a-patriot-act-history-lesson-how-warnings-were-mocked-in-the-senate/277612/