Mental health care at risk due to secret Patriot Act interpretation

_{Freud's sofa, image courtesy Konstantin Binder}

“Dissent is what will save us.”

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The majority of those incidences are baton strikes to the head and face. We saw broken collar bones, broken arms, teeth knocked out, heads bashed in, lips busted and a number of concussions."

What’s secret stays secret

“We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.”

So said NSA whistleblower William Binney, holding his thumb and forefinger close together.

Binney should know what he is talking about. For some 40 years, he worked with the giant NSA and was instrumental in automating its worldwide eavesdropping network.  He told James Bamford why he left the NSA in 2001:

Senate Select Intelligence Committee quietly votes to extend FAA

As everyone expected them to do, the members of the secretive Senate Select Committe on Intelligence have attached a two and a half year extension of the controversial FISA Amendments Act (FAA) to the routine Intelligence Authorization Act, the bill that funds the intelligence operations of the US government.

Feds to Congress on cell tracking rules: ummm, well, ahhh

Kathleen Turner, director of legislative affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has admitted that her agency doesn't have policies in place governing the use of cell phone tracking in the intelligence community. She told Congress that her office was still examining the “view of the full contours of this authority and will get back to you.”

House Republicans to hold data privacy hearing July 14

In the latest Congressional move related to consumer data privacy, two House Republicans of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Greg Walden and Mary Bono, have scheduled a consumer data privacy hearing for July 14. This is just another sign that Congress will likely pass some kind of consumer data privacy legislation soon.

Could the Patriot Act be Worse than we Think?

According to Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), yes. Hardly any congresspeople bothered debating the renewal of this post-9/11, controversial government overhaul of privacy and fourth amendment related law. That's bad enough.

But according to Wyden, the powers the Patriot Act granted to the executive branch, used by the FBI and other federal organizations, are being used far more invasively than the government will admit. Spencer Ackerman reports: