Time to write to your representatives

EFF reports that the senate just passed a bill renewing the Patriot Act. Start sending out letters now people:

Here's where you come in. With PATRIOT renewal now a certainty, the priority is to make sure the final bill looks more like the Senate than the House version -- that is, to ensure that it contains as many checks and balances to protect your privacy and civil liberties as possible.

In particular, the Senate bill tackles two PATRIOT provisions that let the FBI secretly get records about you. Under Sections 215 and 505, the FBI can serve your doctor, banker, librarian, or ISP with a secret order for their records, along with a gag order that prohibits them from ever telling you or anyone else about it. The Senate bill would give the recipients of these secret orders the chance to challenge them in court -- a key reform that may not survive the conference process if more citizens don't speak up to support it.

It would be great to have that scary gag order removed. We really need to get away from this police state mentality. Come on people. We can do this!

Tags: eff, patriot act, save america