The world has spent the last two weeks digesting Edward Snowden’s disclosures illustrating top secret US domestic communications surveillance and cyber warfare programs. Even though the pundit classes are doing their best to launch an intensive investigation of the messenger rather than the government, people around the world are beginning to ask questions and speak out against these extreme intrusions into basic privacy.

Time to repeal the “PATRIOT” Act and rein in FISA.

A new bill set to be introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley would bring some transparency to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court. The bill would force the government to reveal how it interprets National Security laws.

A court order that was classified as top secret indicates Verizon was ordered by a US secret surveillance court to provide call data of millions of communications of Americans on an “ongoing, daily basis” to the National Security Agency (NSA) from April 25 to July 19.

The order authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was published by The Guardian and columnist, Glenn Greenwald, wrote about the order for the media organization, concluding that it showed for “the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.”

An annual report to the United States Senate by the Justice Department shows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court did not deny one single request made to the court by federal law enforcement. All applications to conduct electronic surveillance or “physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes” were granted.

And the Seven & Seven is not just a good drink for my seventh blogiversary, the Seven & Seven’s specificity makes it a very appropriate cocktail for this last weekend of the year for a more, shall we say, “all inclusive” reason.

Friday morning, while some were distracted by Washington’s self-inflicted fiscal clusterfuck, and most were distracted by things that had nothing at all to do with Washington, the US Senate passed a five-year extension to the FISA Amendments Act (FAA)–the oversight-deficient warrantless surveillance program started by the George W. Bush administration. The vote was 73 to 23.

The United States Senate reauthorized a surveillance law that grants the government expanded authority to collec communications of foreign persons outside the US. It also is believed to permit the government to engage in dragnet surveillance of Americans’ communications. The program under the FISA Amendments Act is shrouded in immense secrecy, with there being very little information on whether safeguards against eavesdropping on citizens’ communications are being followed by intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency.

The United States Supreme Court heard a legal challenge being brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008 today.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court shut the door on a legal odyssey that lasted over six years, when they refused to reopen a case attempting to hold private telecommunications companies accountable for their participation in the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.

This week, Congress prepares to abuse the rights of We the People of the United States again, by extending its 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). With the House of Representatives poised to vote today on a premature five year extension, will members remember what they heard when reading the Constitution on the House floor, or instead entrench the Bush-Cheney legacy beyond even the next administration?