Tom Malone, in November 2008:

Privacy may turn out to have become an anomaly.

Decius, in February 2009:

The ship has already sailed on the question of whether or not it's reasonable for the government to collect evidence about everyone all the time so that it can be used against them in court if someone accuses them of a crime or civil tort. This is just another brick in the wall.

Now, Carrie Johnson and Ellen Nakashima:

In a letter, the Obama administration recommended that Congress move swiftly with legislation that would protect the government's ability to collect a variety of business and credit card records and to monitor terrorism suspects with roving wiretaps.

But Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich also told Democrats that the administration is "willing to consider" additional privacy safeguards advocated by lawmakers, so long as the provisions do not "undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities."

Several civil liberties groups are exhorting Congress to use the expiration to begin debate on an array of domestic surveillance issues. One priority is national security letters: no judge signs off on these, and recipients are usually barred from talking about the letters.

Durbin and Feingold want to tighten standards for obtaining national security letters so that the government must show some "nexus to terrorism," heightening the current standard of showing "relevance" to a counterterrorism investigation. The senators also want a judge to be able to review the appropriateness of the gag order on the letters' recipients.

Their new bill, expected to be out this week, will also seek to repeal the legal immunity granted to telecommunications companies included in last year's domestic surveillance legislation. The bill would also ensure that new powers granted under last year's law would not be used as a pretext to target the communications of Americans in the United States without a warrant.

Tune in:

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing entitled "Reauthorizing the USA PATRIOT Act: Ensuring Liberty and Security" on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building.

Jello:

Not finding the exciting, entrepreneurial nexus of our dreams, we figured we'd start one of our own.

Thomas Powers, in May 2005:

Is more what we really need?

In my opinion not.

But running spies is not the NSA's job. Listening is, and more listening is what the NSA knows how to organize, more is what Congress is ready to support and fund, more is what the President wants, and more is what we are going to get.

From the archive:

The phone is ringing! Answer it!