{"id":4001,"date":"2015-05-28T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T13:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=4001"},"modified":"2015-05-28T09:50:20","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T13:50:20","slug":"how-useful-is-section-215-to-law-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=4001","title":{"rendered":"How Useful is Section 215 to Law Enforcement?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> Despite doubling its use of bulk surveillance orders in the five years ending in 2009, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/fbi-didnt-crack-a-single-terror-plot-with-patriot-act-spying-powers\/\">the FBI could not point to a single case where the use of Section 215 of the Patriot Act helped solve a major case<\/a>. That&#8217;s not some left-wing activist speaking but is the conclusion of a 77 page report by the Inspector General of the Justice Department. <\/p>\n<p> Yet to hear recent remarks from the political class&#x2014;I&#8217;m looking at you, Senator McConnell&#x2014;the imminent lapsing of the Patriot Act is the harbinger of Armageddon. The FBI, too, has always described the act as essential for battling the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse\">Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p> Remember this the next time the three-letter agencies and their apologists in the government trot out their usual scare tactics. What they&#8217;re really saying is, \u201cIt&#8217;s absolutely essential even though we haven&#8217;t actually used it. Still, it&#8217;s a fair trade for your civil liberties.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite doubling its use of bulk surveillance orders in the five years ending in 2009, the FBI could not point to a single case where the use of Section 215 of the Patriot Act helped solve a major case. That&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=4001\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-4001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4002,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4001\/revisions\/4002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}