

Patriot Act powers to lapse at midnight as Senate fails to agree on NSA reform - jdp23
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/31/nsa-reform-senate-deal-as-patriot-act

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higherpurpose
> it now looks likely that Congress will have to wait several days before
> passing that bill, the USA Freedom Act.

> The Senate voted 77 to 17 to proceed to debate on the USA Freedom Act. Even
> Paul, after the procedural vote, conceded that the bill will ultimately
> pass.

So it looks like the USA Freedom Act will pass. Doesn't that extend most of
the Patriot Act stuff?

This is why civil liberty groups should've opposed the USA Freedom Act as soon
as it became watered down. Now even most of those who opposed the Patriot Act
in Congress will think the USA Freedom Act is "good reform", and will probably
never look at this again. Not to mention the Patriot Act on its own was but a
small part of NSA's mass spying programs.

Quite disappointed with the outcome. I really hope the EFF, ACLU and the other
groups will know what they're doing by the time the FISA Amendments Act is up
for renewal in 2017. Let's not repeat this mistake again with 5-percenter
"reforms". We need sweeping _drastic_ reforms of NSA's capabilities.

