"While we still believe that the best first step is a modern Church Committee, an independent, public investigation and accounting of the government’s surveillance programs that affect Americans, members of Congress seem determined to try to enact fixes now."
"Last week, Holt introduced the Surveillance State Repeal Act. A number of members of Congress have offered proposals to rein in domestic surveillance, but Holt’s bill may be the most ambitious. It would repeal the 2001 Patriot Act, which the NSA has cited as the legal basis for its phone records surveillance program. It would also repeal the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, the legal foundation for the government’s PRISM program. And it would extend whistleblower protections to cover employees of intelligence agencies."
"now that system is being forced to face what happened while it wasn’t looking— at itself. I will show you the problem by quoting four writers who have touched on it."
"A panel appointed by President Obama to review the government’s surveillance activities has recommended that the National Security Agency no longer keep a database of virtually all Americans’ phone records, and that decisions to spy on foreign leaders be subjected to greater scrutiny."