Stunted

The Senate’s failure to act yesterday means that some post-9/11 surveillance powers used, and some argue abused, by the U.S. government under the Patriot Act have at least temporarily expired, a victory for the strange bedfellow coalition of libertarian conservatives and liberals inspired by Edward Snowden’s revelations two years ago. The Senate is now poised to pass the USA Freedom Act, which has already passed the House, refusing to simply renew the Patriot Act’s mass surveillance provisions as had been desired by surveillance hawks like Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Commenting on Snowden’s impact, Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) told The Guardian, “I think it played the same role for me as it did for most of the American people, who were surprised and stunned that the government had this sort of access to this kind of data.”

Related: Facebook is rolling out an experimental new feature allowing users to add OpenPGP public keys to their profile and use them to encrypt the notification emails that are sent from Facebook to their preferred email accounts.

Google’s “My Account” hub has been upgraded to users greater ability to fine tune how the company uses their data, reports James Vincent for The Verge. (It’s not a “privacy hub,” however—unless you don’t let Google collect any of your data. Good luck with that.)

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has obtained access to the 4 million names on the Ready for Hillary email list, Annie Karni reports for Politico.

Here’s a helpful primer on the basic ways that presidential campaigns are using cookies to track site visitors, by Philip Bump in the Washington Post.

In the Nation, Janelle Orsi conjures up several commons-based alternatives to Airbnb, including Co-bnb (an online marketplace owned and controlled by hosts), Munibnb (a city-managed software platform for short-term rentals); and Allbnb (which would share dividends from such housing rentals with all city residents).

Jake Brewer of Change.org (and PDM friend) is joining the White House chief technology office, reports Nancy Scola for Politico. Kudos! 

The New York Times’ Upshot offers an example of a type of online interactive journalism we’d love to see more of: Try drawing a chart showing how family income affects children’s college changes, and see how you do compared to the actual data and the guesses of 71,000 other readers.

Dr. Saara Sarma’s “All Male Panels” Tumblr gets a push from Melissa Locker in the Guardian.

Speaking of all-male panels, we have none this year at Personal Democracy Forum.

Tired of having to put the food in your own mouth? This Silicon Valley start-up has a solution: Here comes the airplane!