This evening's music features Chicago blues and boogie-woogie piano player Jimmy "Papa" Yancey.

Here are some stories from tonight's post:

FBI violated its own rules while spying on Keystone XL opponents

• Houston investigation amounted to ‘substantial non-compliance’ of rules
• Internal memo labels pipeline opponents as ‘environmental extremists’
• FBI failed to get approval before it opened files on protesters in Texas

The FBI breached its own internal rules when it spied on campaigners against the Keystone XL pipeline, failing to get approval before it cultivated informants and opened files on individuals protesting against the construction of the pipeline in Texas, documents reveal.

Internal agency documents show for the first time how FBI agents have been closely monitoring anti-Keystone activists, in violation of guidelines designed to prevent the agency from becoming unduly involved in sensitive political issues. ...

The documents reveal that one FBI investigation, run from its Houston field office, amounted to “substantial non-compliance” of Department of Justice rules that govern how the agency should handle sensitive matters.

One FBI memo, which set out the rationale for investigating campaigners in the Houston area, touted the economic advantages of the pipeline while labelling its opponents “environmental extremists”.

“Many of these extremists believe the debates over pollution, protection of wildlife, safety, and property rights have been overshadowed by the promise of jobs and cheaper oil prices,” the FBI document states. “The Keystone pipeline, as part of the oil and natural gas industry, is vital to the security and economy of the United States.” ...

The FBI files appear to suggest the Houston branch of the investigation was opened in early 2013, several months after a high-level strategy meeting between the agency and TransCanada, the company building the pipeline.

Environmental activists affiliated with the group were committed to peaceful civil disobedience that can involve minor infractions of law, such as trespass. But they had no history of violent or serious crime.

Rand Paul and Ron Wyden to work together to block Patriot Act renewal

Senators from Kentucky and Oregon launch bipartisan filibuster to prevent a vote on extending the law without amendment

Key provisions of the controversial legislation, including one which allows bulk collection of phone data by the NSA, are set to expire at the end of June. Many Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans support reforming the Patriot Act through the passing of the USA Freedom Act. However, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has been pushing to renew the Patriot Act without amendment.

Although it is unlikely that any clean reauthorization of the Patriot Act would receive a majority in the House of Representatives, the threatened filibuster by Paul and Wyden, first reported by Buzzfeed, would make it impossible for McConnell to even get a vote on extending the Patriot Act. Wyden’s office confirmed the planned filibuster to the Guardian.

NBC: Pakistani official helped the US find Osama bin Laden, not a courier

The CIA discovered Osama bin Laden’s location from a Pakistani intelligence official before the American Special Forces raid that killed the al Qaeda leader, NBC News reports.

A Special Forces operator told the network that the government used a cover story to assert that bin Laden’s courier tipped off the CIA in order to protect the identity of the Pakistani official who gave up the information. The military official added that Pakistani intelligence was hiding bin Laden in the country.

The news comes just one day after a controversial report from journalist Seymour Hersh in the London Review of Books alleged that a Pakistani intelligence official gave up bin Laden’s location to the CIA.

Seymour Hersh Details Explosive Story on Bin Laden Killing & Responds to White House, Media Backlash

David Dayen takes Obama's lies about TPP and lays them out without a lily. This is an excellent piece, too rich in detail to abstract here. Here's the intro to get your clicker interested in heading over to read the piece:

The 10 biggest lies you’ve been told about the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Today, the Senate makes a critical test vote on the Obama Administration’s trade agenda, kicking off a process that the White House hopes to end with the signing of an agreement between 12 nations called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In preparation for this vote, President Obama has been deliberately antagonizing his critics, mostly liberal Democrats. Senator Elizabeth Warren is “a politician, like everybody else,” Obama said Friday to Yahoo News, who has “got a voice that she wants to get out there,” framing her concerns as insincere self-aggrandizement. Those concerns, Obama added, are “absolutely wrong.”

This is not the first time that Obama and his aides have depicted opposition on trade as deliberate misinformation designed to stir up a left-leaning political base, or generate campaign contributions; my favorite is the claim that Warren is merely trying to energize a non-existent Presidential campaign.

It’s beneath the dignity of the Presidency to so aggressively paint opponents as not just wrong on the facts, but hiding the truth on purpose. Warren has responded without using the same indecorous tactics. Unfortunately, I don’t have the same self-control. So by way of response, here are ten moments where the President or his subordinates have lied – call it “misled” or “offered half-truths” or whatever; but I’m in an ornery mood so let’s just say lied – about his trade agenda.

The delicate flowers of Wall Street: Financial titans warn Hillary to be mindful of their feelings

Wall Street tycoons advise Democrats that the UK elections show people hate it when you say mean things about banks

There is no commodity more precious, more delicate, more vulnerable to lasting and irreparable harm than the feelings of a Wall Street executive. The titans of the financial industry have faced zero criminal liability for nearly destroying the economy in 2008, they still enjoy unrivaled influence over the policy platforms of both major political parties, and no one except Bernie Sanders even considers making a run for the president without hitting up the hedge fund managers for donations. Life is very, very good for the rich and powerful. But it isn’t quite good enough, in their view, largely because certain politicians are apt to say unflattering things about Wall Street.

Politico reported yesterday that, in the aftermath of the Tories’ unexpected rout of Labour in last week’s elections in the United Kingdom, Wall Street executives are warning Hillary Clinton and other Democrats that if they keep it up with the populism, then they’re going to meet the same fate as freshly resigned Labour Party leader Ed Miliband:

These bankers and their ideological supporters say if likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton keeps tacking to the left on Wall Street issues — as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, other progressive Democrats and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are demanding — she could wind up facing the same fate.

“[Prime Minister David] Cameron embraced the role of the financial sector in growing the U.K. economy and creating jobs, never once criticizing hedge funds, banks or the wealthy,” said a top executive at one of Wall Street’s largest firms. “Miliband ran against hedge funds and bankers, promising bonus and mansion taxes and lost big. Is that a lesson for Hillary as well?”

Is it? IS IT??? A few months ago we were told that the kings of Wall Street were none too perturbed with Hillary Clinton’s populist rhetoric because they largely understood that she has to say such things to win the Democratic nomination. In the meantime, they’d keep funneling cash to her campaign and trust that she wouldn’t make life too difficult for them once in office. Now that a politician somewhere in the world has lost badly while campaigning on a platform to attack inequality, they’re seizing the opportunity to make the case that populism is bad and that average people, deep down, carry the fire for hedge fund managers and recoil at the prospect of slightly higher tax rates on unearned wealth.

Also of interest:

James Bamford: Why NSA surveillance is worse than you’ve ever imagined

Should We Relitigate the Iraq War in the 2016 Campaign? You Bet We Should

Yemen’s War Is Redrawing the Middle East’s Fault Lines