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Key sections of the USA PATRIOT Act expired
According to the AP, reporting at exactly midnight June 1, the sunset clause of sections 215 et al. has gone into effect, causing those sections to expire.
This link has the rest:
NSA Bulk Phone Records Collection Expires
Phoenix666 writes:
The Senate failed to pass legislation late Sunday to extend three Patriot Act surveillance measures ahead of their midnight expiration. The National Security Agency's bulk telephone metadata collection program—first exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013—is the most high-profile of the three spy tools whose legal authorization expired.
[...] "Are we willing to trade liberty for security?" asked Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), perhaps the most vocal opponent of the legislation. Despite an apparent victory, Paul had no illusions that this fight for privacy would end after these specific extension talks. "The Patriot Act will expire tonight, but it will only be temporary," he added.
Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) said it was time to stand up to terrorists and make "sure that we're doing everything we can to protect Americans from threats of people and a lot of organizations that want to kill us all, that would like to see us—see our heads on the chopping block."
After news of the imminent expiration broke, the American Civil Liberties Union quickly weighed in. "Congress should take advantage of this sunset to pass far-reaching surveillance reform, instead of the weak bill currently under consideration," the group said.
Original Submission-1 Original Submission-2
(Score: 2, Interesting) by TestablePredictions on Monday June 01 2015, @06:01PM
Not everything can be a slam-dunk. The abolition of chattel slavery in America took a whole series of reforms leading up to it, and series of reconstruction afterwards. And several other examples of terrible things slowly righted over time.
Baby steps.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Monday June 01 2015, @06:08PM
You seriously think a government that feels it is no longer bound by the laws it enforces on its people is going to gradually get better all by itself in time? History shows otherwise.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SubiculumHammer on Monday June 01 2015, @06:38PM
I think that the courts will have something to say about that. I think congress would have something to say about that too. There is a lot of grease, true, but when one flagrantly defies the other, there is hell with two solutions: 1) The executive/secret service branch dissolves the rest of government, or 2)The executive/secret service branch complies to the law of the land. Balance of powers will resolve this to some degree, because those powers have little reason to cede their authority.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Tuesday June 02 2015, @12:39AM
Except the courts will never see any of it because whoops - national security.
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Tuesday June 02 2015, @05:31PM
and congress can defund those programs, and all the ops will go home to be with their families.