For today at least the government has far fewer tools at its disposal for spying on US citizens.

Courtesy of the Daily Dot:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) used the Senate's arcane rules to force government spying powers to expire for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, blocking a bill to reform and extend those powers in a tense Sunday session. 

The failure of the USA Freedom Act leaves Congress with no options for averting the midnight expiration of the USA Patriot Act's controversial Section 215 and two other surveillance provisions. The reform bill, which the House passed before leaving town for a week-long recess, would end the government's bulk collection of Americans' phone records under Section 215 while leaving the other two provisions intact. 

At first, things seemed to be moving smoothly. The Senate voted overwhelmingly (77-17) to proceed to final passage of the USA Freedom Act, invoking a step known as cloture, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) acknowledged that the bill was "now the only realistic way forward." 

But cloture motions must "sit" for 30 hours unless no senator objects to moving forward to a full vote on the bill at hand, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) indicated that he would object. Because of his procedural move, the Senate cannot vote on final passage of the bill until 2am ET Tuesday, at the earliest.

Now before you break out that champagne you should know that it is virtually a given that the USA Freedom Act (Ironic name don't you think?) will easily pass on Tuesday. And when it does it will reinstate the roving wiretap provision which allowed them to wiretap new devices used by a suspect without having to get a new court order for each one, and to track "lone wolf" suspects with no known affiliation with a terror network.

However what will NOT be back is the government's bulk collection of our phone records, and that is no small victory.

And of course Rand Paul awaits your adoration: 

"This is a victory no matter how you look at it," Paul said in a statement. "It might be short lived, but I hope that it provides a road for a robust debate, which will strengthen our intelligence community, while also respecting our Constitution." 

"The expiration of the NSA's sweeping, all-encompassing and ineffectual powers will not relinquish functions necessary for protecting national security," Paul said. "The expiration will instead do what we should have done all along—rely on the Constitution for these powers."

Now I am going to give Paul his due here, if he had not been such a vocal opponent of the Patriot Act we may not have seen the bulk data portion taken out in this new version.

However it should also be noted that once it was removed the act of holding up the passage of the  USA Freedom Act really accomplished very little except to give Senator Paul a little more time in the limelight.

Paul has also politically positioned himself in a place where there are few others that can compete with him. I don't really think that will help him to win the Republican nomination, but it might help him in the years to come.

Time will tell.

Senators give up on trying to extend the Patriot Act and leave town with the program set to lapse by May 31st.

Courtesy of Politico:  

The Senate plunged into chaos Saturday as Republicans found themselves tangled over the PATRIOT Act, Rand Paul repeatedly stymied his leaders, and senators left town with critical national security programs about to lapse. 

In a rare early morning Saturday vote, the Senate blocked a popular House bill that would rein in controversial government surveillance programs. The vote was 57-42, and it needed 60 votes to advance. Immediately after that vote, the Senate also rejected a straight 60-day extension of the Bush-era national security law on a 45-54 vote — leaving the Senate with no immediate options to ensure the programs don’t expire before the end of the month.

Paul, the libertarian firebrand and GOP presidential hopeful, pushed the Senate into the wee hours of Saturday to protest the bulk collection of phone records, as weary and recess-hungry senators trudged through a packed to-do list — finishing trade legislation but getting stuck on the PATRIOT Act issues. 

“It’s not about making a point, it’s about trying to prevent the bulk collection of data,” Paul told reporters after the Senate floor drama. When asked whether his objections were a fundraising tactic, Paul responded: “I think people don’t question my sincerity.” 

Actually I do that all of the time, but I have to admit that right now Paul, and the Senators voting with him, are doing the American people a solid.

Here is what Time magazine had to report about this: 

The main stumbling block was a House-passed provision to end the NSA’s bulk collection of domestic phone records. Instead, the records would remain with telephone companies subject to a case-by-case review. 

The White House has pressured the Senate to back the House bill, which drew an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote last week and had the backing of GOP leaders, Democrats and the libertarian-leaning members. 

But the Senate blocked the bill on a vote of 57-42, short of the 60-vote threshold to move ahead. That was immediately followed by rejection of a two-month extension to the existing programs. The vote was 54-45, again short of the 60-vote threshold. 

McConnell repeatedly asked for an even shorter renewal of current law, ticking down days from June 8 to June 2. But Paul and other opponents of the post-Sept. 11 law objected each time.

The NSA has reported that they will begin winding down their collection of domestic calling records this next week if their was no movement on this extension, which sounds almost too good to be true.

It should probably come as no surprise that Jeb Bush not only supports the Patriot Act, but has blinders on concerning its effect on Americans:

"There's not a shred of evidence that anybody's civil liberties have been violated by it. Not a shred," Bush said Thursday in New Hampshire.

Yeah, right.

I still do not trust Rand Paul as far as I could fling his hairpiece, but I have to admit that he is doing a good thing here.

By the way here is video of Mitch McConnell repeatedly attempting to extend the Patriot Act, and Rand Paul repeatedly shutting him down.  That's actually pretty entertaining.

Just a reminder.

Hypocrisy is the bread and butter of Fox News.

Perhaps even worse than having it confirmed that our government is stomping all over our privacy, is the revelation that amateurs are in charge of doing it.

Courtesy of Slate:  

According to the Guardian, Snowden is a 29-year-old high school dropout who trained for the Army Special Forces before an injury forced him to leave the military. His IT credentials are apparently limited to a few “computer” classes he took at a community college in order to get his high school equivalency degree—courses that he did not complete. His first job at the NSA was as a security guard. Then, amazingly, he moved up the ranks of the United States’ national security infrastructure: The CIA gave him a job in IT security. He was given diplomatic cover in Geneva. He was hired by Booz Allen Hamilton, the government contractor, which paid him $200,000 a year to work on the NSA’s computer systems. 

Let’s note what Snowden is not: He isn’t a seasoned FBI or CIA investigator. He isn’t a State Department analyst. He’s not an attorney with a specialty in national security or privacy law. 

Instead, he’s the IT guy, and not a very accomplished, experienced one at that. If Snowden had sent his résumé to any of the tech companies that are providing data to the NSA’s PRISM program, I doubt he’d have even gotten an interview. Yes, he could be a computing savant anyway—many well-known techies dropped out of school. But he was given access way beyond what even a supergeek should have gotten. As he tells the Guardian, the NSA let him see “everything.” He was accorded the NSA’s top security clearance, which allowed him to see and to download the agency’s most sensitive documents. But he didn’t just know about the NSA’s surveillance systems—he says he had the ability to use them. “I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities [sic] to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email,” he says in a video interview with the paper. 

Snowden’s leak is thus doubly damaging. The scandal isn’t just that the government is spying on us. It’s also that it’s giving guys like Snowden keys to the spying program. It suggests the worst combination of overreach and amateurishness, of power leveraged by incompetence. The Keystone Cops are listening to us all.

I heard just today that Booz Allen Hamilton has fired Snowden (Gee really?) but there is no indication that any of their other employees are any more trustworthy or qualified.

And to me at least the idea that there are rooms full of poorly screened, low level techs with access to our private e-mails and phone records is chilling.

However according to a recent Pew poll it appears that the majority of Americans simply do not care that the government is gathering their data which indicates that my prediction that this would be a scandal that could hurt the President was premature, and ultimately false.

I am not yet sure how I feel about that as I certainly feel we SHOULD be upset, yet I'm also gratified that yet another Right Wing attack against the President has run out of ammunition.

If ever I could have been described as conflicted, now would be that time.

Apparently the only branch of the United States government that is not broken is the Judicial System. Suck it Gonzales!

A law allowing federal anti-terrorism agents to access information on the US public without a warrant has been ruled as unconstitutional by a US judge.

Victor Marrero said Congress exceeded its authority by allowing the FBI to keep requests secret under the Patriot Act, passed after the 9/11 attacks.

He said the act offended constitutional principles of checks and balances, and violated the guarantee of free speech.

The requests were mainly for financial, telephone and internet records.

Hah! Take that you fear mongering, liberty stealing, phone tapping, foot tapping, hypocrites!

Sorry I got a little overly excited there.

Bush has tried for six years to push the courts over to the far right, but has not been completely successful yet. I think that the Democrats should block every single judicial appointee that Bush sends their way. That is the only way to hang on to the freedoms that we still have left.