We had one moment where this was subject to any debate at all, during the fight over the FISA amnesty legislation. But that was really about a small portion of the total data collection. Most of the surveillance remains a secret. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall tried to tease out a little more this summer, when they tried to get the intelligence community to admit to how they were misinterpreting the Patriot Act to allow for more data collection. But that never went anywhere. From NSA surveillance to national security letters to the AT&T room on Folsom Street in San Francisco, what bits and pieces we do know about point to a giant network Hoovering up every piece of information you let out into the world digitally.

There is still bipartisanship in Washington when something like depriving civil liberties in the name of Terror has to get done. We may have killed Osama bin Laden, but we have yet to slay the Boogeyman.

Congressional leaders in both parties made a deal to extend three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for four more years with little debate. Earlier this year, the same provisions – roving wiretaps, court-approved access to business records, and “lone wolf” provisions allowing surveillance on foreign citizens without connections to terrorists – were extended for 90 days.

If you blink today, you may miss the House of Representatives passing an extension until the end of the year of several provisions of the Patriot Act that expire in February. They will try to pass it under the suspension of the rules, meaning that they will need a 2/3 vote, but also that nobody can offer amendments. And they will spend a whopping 40 minutes of debate on the topic.

I’m watching a panel on online surveillance with Safir Ahmed (who edited Anatomy of Deceit and all of Markos’ books), Josh Gerstein, Farhana Khera, Laura Murphy, and Adam Serwer.

Main Justice reports that Pat Leahy and DOJ’s Inspector General Glenn Fine have been chatting about further IG review of the FBI’s use of the several PATRIOT provisions that were contentious issues in last years attempt to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. This means that Fine is going to do what the legislation would have mandated — conduct further reviews of these authorities — on his own. But I’m also interested in the scope Fine lays out for his review in his response to Leahy.

A quick overview of Wednesday’s doings in House Judiciary Committee’s mark-up of the PATRIOT Act renewal. The hearing started with John Conyers introducing a managers amendment to the bill that made tweaks to the overal bill to move them slightly closer to what the Obama Administration wanted. Republicans tried to gut National Security Letters (NSLs). [...]