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Senator Feinstein response to my letter re Patriot Act abuses by FBI

Dear Mr. Armstrong:

I received your letter and want to thank you for sharing your views about the USA PATRIOT Act.  I recognize that this is an important issue to you, and I welcome the opportunity to share my point of view with you.

Three provisions of the USA PATRIOT ACT – known as "roving wiretaps," "lone wolf," and "business records" – are currently set to expire on May 27, 2011.  It is important to note that all three of these authorities can only be used after being approved by a federal judge. For your information, these provisions do the following: 

o   Roving wiretaps – before this authority was established, warrants could only be issued for a specific phone number.  In the modern age of telecommunications, terrorists were able to evade surveillance simply by switching phones, which is easily done with throwaway cell phones.  Thus, the "roving wiretap" authority simply authorizes a judge to issue a surveillance order that is specific to the suspect terrorist, rather than specific to a particular phone number. 

o   Lone wolf – the lone wolf provision allows for court-ordered surveillance of foreigners who engage in international terrorism but for whom an association with a specific international terrorist group has not yet been determined. 

o   Business records – finally, the business records section allows the government to obtain business records relating to a suspected terrorist if it receives a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

As Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I have seen how the United States intelligence and law enforcement agencies have used these expiring provisions and I have come to believe without them, they would lack important tools to protect this nation.  The United States remains a target for terrorists, and good surveillance is critical to prevent attacks.  For this reason, I have introduced legislation, the "FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011" (S. 149), to extend the three expiring provisions until December 31, 2013. 

 

As you may be aware, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has also introduced legislation to extend the expiring provisions until December 31, 2013.  In addition, Senator Leahy's bill, the "USA PATRIOT Sunset Extension Act of 2011" (S. 193) would amend the law to improve congressional oversight of these three provisions and impose a sunset on the National Security Letters section of the PATRIOT Act. 

On March 10, 2011, I voted for the "USA PATRIOT Sunset Extension Act of 2011" when the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which I serve, approved the bill by a vote of 11 to 7.  I voted for this bill because it would provide appropriate oversight over PATRIOT Act authorities and civil liberty protections, while also giving intelligence and law enforcement agencies the certainty and predictability they need to safeguard national security. 

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me.  Please know I will keep your thoughts in mind as this debate continues.  If you have any additional comments or questions, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,

  Dianne Feinstein
          United States Senato

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Crate, Ge.tt & Min.US 3 New File Share Methods

culled from my daily feeds this item from the folks atmakeuseofdotcom

3 New & Superb Ways To Share Files Online Posted: 28 Mar 2011 04:30 PM PDT With the advent of HTML5, which enables websites to do amazing things, the realm of file-sharing sites has definitely grown with newer options that make the whole experience a lot more seamless. You can drag and drop onto websites, in interesting ways you couldn’t (or could with limited results) with the web apps you may be used to, like the defunct Drop.io or Mediafire. It may be easier to use desktop programs, like Dropbox (which you now use to sync foldersoutside the main one), but it never hurts to explore other alternatives that offer similar features. We’ll take a look at some of the newer web-based storage and file-sharing sites that despite their simple looks, offer convenient drag-and-drop, as well as, shortened URLs and statistics (something that most desktop programs don’t provide yet). Crate With Crate, you get a beautiful and ad-free site where you can upload files of up to 50 MB by drag and dropping them onto the website and copy the shortened link to share with whomever. You can have up to 6 different crates or workspaces for a total of 200MB of storage space, which you can track if you sign up for a free account. Once signed in, you can see the number of views and downloads for your files. Though you can share an entire crate, you can’t download it since you still have to click on each file to download it. You will also need a compatible browser to get the most of out Crate, as you can’t drag and drop files in IE9. Ge.tt Here is another simple, real-time sharing website, which has a focus on letting you share your files quick and move on. With Ge.tt, you can select files  or can drag and drop them onto the site (if you have a supported browser), and then share the shortened URL like the other apps in this list, but a cool feature is that you don’t have to wait for your file to finish uploading before users download them. You also don’t need an account to start uploading files, but acquiring a free account enables your files to live longer than 30 days, plus you get live statistics. You can also add or remove files,  but any files that stay inactive in your account for more than 3 months will get removed. Like Crate, Ge.tt doesn’t allow the download of an entire share, so if you have multiple files to share, other users will have to click on each file to download them all. Min.us Min.us started as a super-easy way to share good-looking image galleries, but nowadays, the storage service has expanded and thus, it now accepts other types of files, such as documents, and videos. You can drag and drop or select your files. Then, you can instantly view your file, add or remove files, as well as download the entire share, which will be in the form of a zip file. You can use the service without signing up, but with an account, you’ll have a a profile at http://min.us/u/YOURusername like this one, where you can publish files and galleries. Be sure to explore Steve’s article as he reviewed Min.us in more detail, back when the service was mostly for displaying great image galleries. Behind minimalistic looks, these 3 sites offer plenty of features and could be great alternatives to Drop.io. I say, using any of these sites is as easy as using Dropbox’s Public folder, but let’s hear from you. What do you use to share your files instantly? Image credit: Shutterstock

Barlow Shanghai

The Journey

I am winding up the same place I began
And now it seems at last I understand
So when I die at least I'll know the way
The water rose, the water fell
And in the end it's just as well
Since everything that happens is a wave...

                  J.P. Barlow, P. Bolger

http://www.mrblotto.com/