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Comment by mardifoufs | Hacker News Reader

But wasn't the patriot act pretty much neutered when it's most important sections (section 215 being the most controversial one) expired under the Trump administration back in 2020?

But it seems like the sunsetting of those sections received very very little coverage, all things considered and the discourse around the patriot act reads as if no one is acknowledging or giving any importance to those sections expiring. I don't understand and I know I'm missing something about how american lawmaking works. What's the catch?

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When the Patriot Act was sunset it was replaced with the even more Orwellian sounding USA Freedom Act, which on face value includes better safeguards. It's hard to know if that has improved matters as we have little insight into the government's legal interpretations or real world application of the written law.

Even without these two laws it's likely government spying would go on unchanged, a large amount of the domestic surveillance is done under the 2008 FISA amendment. For example, the NSA Prism project where they have direct access to the user data of major big tech companies in the USA, that's authorized under the 2008 FISA amendment not Patriot Act.

Almost nobody would have reported on Trump doing positive things like this, even if it is achieved by doing nothing or by accident.

I found the economist a good resource. They have a very explicit bias (free trade is good) and slammed him for the tariffs, but their coverage of the dreamers legislation early on was very informative for a non-American.

It wasn't "achieved by doing nothing or by accident". It was because Trump threatened to VETO it because the FISA was used by Obama admin to spy on his campaign.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/28/fisa-bill-house-withdraws-su...

People need to stop being so hyper biased.

Pretty much why everyone criticized the act in the first place. I believe they were desparate to turn up any dirt. At this point I believe people to support such issues for the party they disagree with.

>But it seems like the sunsetting of those sections received very very little coverage

Because the left didn't want to bring attention to something good that Trump did, and neither did the neocons on the right. Only the libertarian wing of the right and the privacy advocate wing of the left cared to talk about it.

Ya... No. The Patriot act didn't make it out of Congress. It had literally nothing to do with Trump, the Democrats shot it down long before it got anywhere near him.

https://archive.md/tBIHY

I'm not sure that's accurate at all. I agree that Trump isn't really to credit since he also pushed for another (earlier) surveillance bill but in this case it's very clear that his veto was crucial to block an extension of the sections. Your article is from march 2020 and while it does mention the house dems/senate GOP agreeing on a new bill, the Trump's veto threat came in 2 months later.

>House Democrats scrapped a vote to reauthorize national security surveillance authorities that have been expired since March after Republicans revolted from the measure following tweets from President Donald Trump urging them to oppose it.

[...]

>Pelosi charged at a news conference Thursday that Republican support for the bill "disappeared by a tweet -- the twinkle of a tweet."

[...]

>Trump issued a veto threat over Twitter Wednesday after telling Republicans to vote against it, and he celebrated the bill's failure in the House on Thursday.

source: https://cnn.com/cnn/2020/05/27/politics/house-vote-fisa/inde...

> It had literally nothing to do with Trump, the Democrats shot it down long before it got anywhere near him.

This isn't accurate at all and your link is outdated. Give the man some credit where it's due.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/28/fisa-bill-house-withdraws-su...

> House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced he would pull the legislation Thursday morning after the chamber failed to pass it on Wednesday. As the House considered the measure Wednesday, President Donald Trump pledged to veto it.

> "At the request of the Speaker of the House, I am withdrawing consideration of the FISA Act," Hoyer said in a written statement. "The two-thirds of the Republican party that voted for this bill in March have indicated they are going to vote against it now. I am told they are doing so at the request of the President. I believe this to be against the security interest of the United States and the safety of the American people."

He threatened the veto because of how FISA was used by Obama admin to spy on his campaign.

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