Among all the other bad stuff, there’s that one thing that’s been in the news, as if it’s the only thing wrong with the so-called Patriot Act…
The legislation will phase out, over six months, the once-secret National Security Agency bulk phone records collection program made public two years ago by agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Which everyone in Congress was Shocked! to learn about, even though it’s been in the news for years and there’s that cunningly-hidden humungous data center in Utah that some congress somewhere voted the money for…
But they know about it now, boy, and it’s totally illegal and stuff, and so congress has given NSA six months to start thinking about stopping that horribly illegal stuff the voters say they don’t like. Or at least stop getting caught at it.
USA FREEDOM Act, yet. That’s just insulting.
Anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with Orwells’s “1984” will understand the irony behind the Patriot Act’s name, because the powers that it gives our government would have horrified our founding fathers.
But it’s OKAY, Joel. Because now the phone/data companies will collect all that bulk info instead of the NSA! The NSA/FBI et al. will actually have to ASK for it. And of course the heroic phone companies will resist if the NSA tries to violate the constitution. We’re safe now!
Oh, let the bells of the USA FREEDOM Act ring!
The phone companies have always collected it. DUH! It isn’t illegal or unconstitutional to collect it.
gonewiththewind — No, there’s more to it than you’re thinking. In the wonderful new “FREEDOM” law, the phone companies have been ORDERED by the fedgov to archive the data so that the NSA and friends will have access to it.
The secret FISA court is supposed to have to give approval for access. (I always really, really trust secret courts, don’t you?)
It’s not just a matter of the phone companies gathering, then disposing of or keeping, metadata as they might see fit. It’s just the usual old lipstick-onna-pig of making “private” companies cover up for what the gov wants.
Law enforcement has ALWAYS had access to it. I do not understand where everyone’s head has been all these years. If the courts so orders EVERYTHING you have or anyone has can be looked at. The reason that NSA was tasked to hold the meta data was because the phone companies who had been doing it for decades decided it was becoming too burdensome and they would delete it after 6 months to a year. So congress decided the data was too important to simply allow it to be deleted so they passed a law to require the NSA to keep the data. This is legal and constitutional !!!