Several provisions of the Patriot Act expired over the weekend, ending — among other things — the government’s ability to collect bulk metadata on Americans’ phone calls and emails. Now legislators are debating the USA Freedom Act, a measure that would still allow the government access to the data, but it would now have to query databases kept by phone companies. Many citizens, advocacy groups and presidential candidates have weighed in with concerns about how far the National Security Agency (NSA) has gone to protect Americans from terrorism. We’ll talk about the debate in Congress with William Binney. He worked for the NSA for nearly 40 years. He directed the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group and was a co-founder of the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center. Marcy Wheeler, an independent journalist who writes on national security, surveillance and civil liberties also joins us in studio. She’s written the blog Empty Wheel since 2011. (Photo: AP/John O’Boyle, Feature Photo Service for Contrast Security)