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jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
some really bad laws were passed in reaction to the 9/11 attack:
"Section 702 allows the government to collect — from U.S. firms like Google and without a warrant — the communications of targeted foreigners. That authority, which grew out of the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance program, will expire at the end of December unless lawmakers extend the law.
Congress previously reauthorized the law in 2012 and 2018. But it faces an uncertain fate this cycle. A faction of hard-right Republicans are opposing it in alignment with former President Donald J. Trump’s hostility to the “deep state,” joining forces with liberal-leaning civil liberties advocates who have long had concerns about how Section 702 allows the government to scoop up some communications of Americans without a warrant and make it available to intelligence and law-enforcement officials."