PATRIOT ACT - The Divide

IMO:

• On the Internet you CANNOT expect privacy, any more than you can if you are talking in the middle of Central Park.  There is always a chance that someone will overhear you.

• Phone matadata does NOT have any personal data.  It is ONLY phone numbers and date-time stamps that are use by your phone carrier's billing computer to calculate cost.  It is the phone carrier's billing computer that holds personal information and should require a warrant to see.  Note you DO NOT own your phone number, your carrier does.

"The Patriot Act’s strange divide" PBS NewsHour 5/22/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  On June 1, the NSA will lose legal authority to collect bulk phone records, as key provisions of the Patriot Act expire.  The House has passed a new bill replacing bulk collection with more targeted searches.  But some senators, including the majority leader, want to extend the Patriot Act, leaving lawmakers scrambling before the holiday.  Judy Woodruff talks to Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  We now turn to the heated debate over government security and individual privacy.

Three key provisions of the Patriot Act that allow for government surveillance are set to expire soon, but the U.S. Senate is planning to be out of Washington next week, leaving lawmakers scrambling to find agreement on this controversial issue.

Senators came to work this morning confronting an impasse on surveillance and a looming deadline.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, (D) Vermont:  Unfortunately, the clock’s been run out.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  On June 1, the National Security Agency loses legal authority to collect bulk phone records, as key provisions of the Patriot Act expire.  But the Senate is leaving for the Memorial Day recess and won’t return until June 1, leaving Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy to point across the Capitol.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY:  The House worked very hard on this.  They completed their work and they left.  They’re not coming back until after the surveillance authorities are set to expire.  And the House leadership has made clear they will not pass an extension, even if they’re in.

MAN:  On this vote, the yeas are 338 and the nays are 88.  The bill is passed.