From Restore The Fourth:
The PATRIOT Act's most invasive provisions expired on March 15th, 2020, but some lawmakers and bureaucrats want to bring back this invasive surveillance law so the government can spy on our phone calls, text messages, emails, and Internet history … without a warrant. We can’t let that happen.
For years, the US government used the PATRIOT Act to spy on hundreds of millions of Americans, including journalists,1 whistleblowers,2 and protesters.3 They told us this massive surveillance program was necessary to keep us safe from terrorism, but internal review boards found that the government’s spying failed to identify or prevent a single terrorist attack.4 And yet lawmakers continued to renew the PATRIOT Act over and over again.
Thankfully, Congress finally let the most invasive provisions of the PATRIOT Act expire last year, and we’re all safer because of it. But some politicians and government officials have begun openly attacking our privacy rights once again. They’re likely to try to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act, or create a new law to allow them to spy on us. We have to stop them.
Thanks for all you do,
Alex Marthews, Restore The Fourth
[1] The Intercept
[2] CNN
https://money.cnn.com/2016/07/01/media/fbi-spy-journalists/index.html
[3] Brennan Center
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/fbi-targets-new-generation-black-activists
[4] Vox
https://www.vox.com/2015/6/2/8701499/patriot-act-explain
