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posted by janrinok on Monday June 01 2015, @03:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the make-that-telephone-call-now! dept.

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:

http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/05/31/senate-meets-with-key-patriot-act-provisions-on-the-ropes

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.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/senate-impasse-nsa-spy-tactics-including-phone-records-collection-expiring/


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday June 01 2015, @08:52PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday June 01 2015, @08:52PM (#190875) Journal

    It would also be easier for them to catch criminals if they could walk into any house at any time and have a look around. There are any number of things we could do to "make their job easier" but we don't do them because privacy is valuable.

    There is no house in america (with the possible exception of a toy doll house) in which the police could not find some violation, infraction, or crime with which to cite you. There are bomb making materials in every house such as wires and timers and many innocent things that could be combined to go boom in some way or another.

    You may laugh and insist this never happens in real life. But if they want to hold you, or they want time to obtain a search warrant, anything will suffice, even if the charges are all dropped in a few days.

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