Does anyone know exactly what is in this bill? Has anyone read it?
If Obama wants it, it can’t be good.
>> Does anyone know exactly what is in this bill? Has anyone read it?
Doubtful few no much about anything related this perceived scandal.
In response to “Has anyone read it? If Obama wants it, it can’t be good.”
Well, aside from extending parts of the Patriot Act (the bad part of the bill) there were a couple of worthy provisions that would have been improvements to the current law... such as:
- some metadata records currently accessible to the NSA would instead remain in the possession of telecommunication companies, and the intelligence services would have to request that data from FISA
- would allow public advocates in FISA proceedings
- Fed-gov would have to disclose some FISA decisions and provide statistical data on the extent of their domestic spying
Not bad provisions by themselves... but I don’t consider them worth extending sections 206/215 of the Patriot Act for. As The Guardian article linked to above speculated... we’re better off just letting these parts of the Patriot Act die on their own without having to vote on them next year. The main thing we have to guard against going forward, IMO, are the Democrats and GOPe colluding to sneak Patriot Act extensions into future bills without us noticing until it’s too late to stop them.