No, the PATRIOT Act Didn’t Really Expire

A few days ago, I was speaking to a client who informed me that “the PATRIOT Act expired last week.” She went on to tell me that as a result, she now felt her electronic communications were safe from warrantless government surveillance.

My client, who I’ll call “Debby,” wasn’t correct in saying that the entire PATRIOT Act expired. It’s true that a small section of the law dealing with the bulk collection of phone records expired November 30. But I can’t blame her for believing this entire ill-conceived law no longer exists.

Over the last few months, apologists for the military-industrial-surveillance complex that dominates US politics have warned that America is at grave risk without the bulk records collection program. No less an authority than CIA director John Brennan testified before Congress that the US has been placed at risk by “political grandstanding and crusading for ideological causes.”Encrypt email messages. For this task, a good option is some variant of “Pretty Good Privacy” (PGP). One of the best is Enigmail, a plug-in for the popular Thunderbird email program.

One thing is for certain: Governments don’t cede power willingly. Edward Snowden’s revelations proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the NSA is much more focused on hoarding data to blackmail current and future political enemies than it is in unearthing terror plots. Perhaps that’s why it’s so bad at finding actual terrorists.

Nothing less than a political earthquake will change this status. And the end of the bulk records program of the PATRIOT Act represents only a very small tremor.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Reprinted with permission from Nestmann.com.

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