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Morning news dump and music by Lucinda Williams.

As Spying Foes Look to 'Sunset' Patriot Act, White House Turns up the Pressure
Justice Department memo reveals pressure campaign as two competing spy bills head to vote

With key provisions of the Patriot Act set to expire at the end of the month and congressional in-fighting over the legality of government surveillance continuing to rage, the National Security Agency (NSA) will reportedly begin "winding down" bulk surveillance operations this weekend.

"After May 22, 2015, the National Security Agency will need to begin taking steps to wind down the bulk telephone metadata program in anticipation of a possible sunset in order to ensure that it does not engage in any unauthorized collection or use of the metadata," stated a Justice Department memo circulated on Wednesday.

The particular provisions set to expire are Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, as well as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's (FISA) "lone wolf" and "roving wiretap" programs, which enabled the collection of bulk metadata.

The memo states that without action this week there will be a lapse in surveillance which, as The Hill notes, "significantly increases the pressure on the Senate to act before lawmakers leave for their Memorial Day recess." 

California oil spill: State of emergency declared, up to 105,000 gallons leaked

California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency over Tuesday's oil spill off the Santa Barbara County coast. It follows news that up to 105,000 gallons of oil leaked out from the ruptured pipeline.

“This emergency proclamation cuts red tape and helps the state quickly mobilize all available resources,” said Governor Brown in a statement. “We will do everything necessary to protect California’s coastline.”

Brown's office added that six boom boats, three 65-foot collection vessels and hand crews coordinating with the state as clean-up efforts continue. California state oil spill, wildlife and emergency officials are also working to alleviate the situation.

Originally, US Coast Guard officials estimated that the approximately 21,000 gallons of oil had spilled out of a pipeline operated by Plains All American Pipeline, though this calculation is being investigated. The type of oil was later identified as crude, and officials said the spill had stretched out to approximately nine miles across Santa Barbara County's Refugio Beach.

Militarization Is More Than Tanks and Rifles: It’s a Cultural Disease, Acclimating the Citizenry to Life in a Police State

“If we’re training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and to serve. A soldier’s mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not.”— Arthur Rizer, former civilian police officer and member of the military

Talk about poor timing. Then again, perhaps it’s brilliant timing.

Only now—after the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense have passed off billions of dollars worth of military equipment to local police forces, after police agencies have been trained in the fine art of war, after SWAT team raids have swelled in number to more than 80,000 a year, after it has become second nature for local police to look and act like soldiers, after communities have become acclimated to the presence of militarized police patrolling their streets, after Americans have been taught compliance at the end of a police gun or taser, after lower income neighborhoods have been transformed into war zones, after hundreds if not thousands of unarmed Americans have lost their lives at the hands of police who shoot first and ask questions later, after a whole generation of young Americans has learned to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates—only now does President Obama lift a hand to limit the number of military weapons being passed along to local police departments.

Not all, mind you, just some.

Talk about too little, too late.

Months after the White House defended a federal program that distributed $18 billion worth of military equipment to local police, Obama has announced that he will ban the federal government from providing local police departments with tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers, camouflage uniforms and large-caliber firearms.

9 depressing predictions for the future of America

Each of these national security stories is guaranteed to surface at least once in the decades to come

It’s commonplace to speak of “the fog of war,” of what can’t be known in the midst of battle, of the inability of both generals and foot soldiers to foresee developments once fighting is underway. And yet that fog is nothing compared to the murky nature of the future itself, which, you might say, is the fog of human life. As Tomorrowlands at world fairs remind us, despite a human penchant for peering ahead and predicting what our lives will be like, we’re regularly surprised when the future arrives.

Remind me who, even among opponents and critics of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, ever imagined that the decision to take out Saddam Hussein’s regime and occupy the country would lead to a terror caliphate in significant parts of Iraq and Syria that would conquer social media and spread like wildfire. And yet, don’t think that the future is completely unpredictable either.

In fact, there’s a certain repetition factor in our increasingly bizarro American world that lends predictability to that future. In case you hadn’t noticed, a range of U.S. military, intelligence, and national security measures that never have the effects imagined in Washington are nonetheless treasured there. As a result, they are applied again and again, usually with remarkably similar results.

The upside of this is that it offers all of us the chance to be seers (or Cassandras). So, with an emphasis on the U.S. national security state and its follies, here are my top nine American repeat headlines, each a surefire news story guaranteed to appear sometime, possibly many times, between June 2015 and the unknown future.

The Clintons Made Wall Street Richer, and It Returned the Favor

The Clintons' wealth is derived from an army of corporations that benefited from the laws the couple passed.

Late at the end of last week, the Clinton campaign sent its long-awaited personal financial disclosures to select media outlets. From the perspective of the campaign, it was a clever move; by sending their disclosures to the media first before sending them to the Federal Election Commission, they essentially controlled the timing of the stories about their income for the past year and a half.

The disclosures detail the incomes of both Clintons going back to 2014. From what was offered to the press, we know that in less than a year and a half, the Clintons raked in over $30 million, the vast majority from speaking fees they charged to foreign and domestic corporations and other organizations willing to pay speech honorariums.

The bulk of the reporting on this matter has focused on the amount of money the Clintons earned. “The report underscores how much wealth the Clintons continued to amass as the Secretary of State prepared to launch her second bid for the presidency,” concluded USA Today. But the bigger story is why the Clintons are so rich. Their wealth is derived from an army of corporations that benefited from the very laws the Clintons passed, and now they are returning the favors. Although corporations from every sector of the economy developed this symbiotic relationship with the Clintons, none is more prominent than Wall Street.

Hundreds of Tech Companies to Congress: TPP and Fast Track Harms Digital Innovation and Users’ Rights

In a joint letter to Congress released today, more than 250 technology companies and user rights organizations say that the extreme level of secrecy surrounding trade negotiations have led to provisions in agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that threaten digital innovation, free speech, and access to knowledge online, and the letter calls on Congress to come out against the Fast Track, also known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), bill for legitimizing this secretive process. Its signatories include AVG Technologies, DreamHost, Namecheap, Mediafire, Imgur, Internet Archive, BoingBoing, Piwik, Private Internet Access, and many others.

The letter specifically identifies the TPP's threats based on leaked texts of the agreement—how it threatens fair use, could lead to more costly forms of online copyright enforcement, criminalize whistleblowing and investigative journalism, and create investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) courts that would further jeopardize user protections in domestic laws. The Fast Track bill, the companies write, would legitimize the exclusive process that has led to these and other provisions, as well as undermine lawmakers' efforts towards striking the right balance between the interests of copyright holders and those of innovators and users.

“We simply cannot allow our policymakers to use secret trade negotiations to make digital policy for the 21st century,” said Maira Sutton, global policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Leaks of the TPP agreement have revealed time and time again that this opaque process has led to provisions that undermine our rights to free speech, privacy, and innovation online. The TPP is a huge threat to the Internet and its users. Full stop.”

“The future of the Internet is simply too important to be decided behind closed doors,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future. “The Fast Track / Trade Promotion Authority process actively silences the voices of Internet users, startups, and small tech companies while giving the biggest players even more power to set policy that benefits a few select companies while undermining the health of the entire Web.”