Besides phone records by the NSA, who else is collecting private information such as medical records, financial records, credit card purchases? (Video)

The video shows how the votes are proceeding across party lines. 

On Wednesday, Jul 24, 2013, the House voted against an amendment that would have limited the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect U.S. phone call records. So as the NSA is allowed to continue to collect phone call records from every person, four major insights became evident from the House discussion about the amendment.

• It is more important to hear what is NOT being said than what is being said: "During the debate, few lawmakers stood to defend NSA's surveillance programs." Only a few speakers rose to speak against the NSA surveillance program and for the amendment, reported the Los Angeles Times on July 24, 2013. Evidently, defenders of the NSA surveillance program did not feel any need to defend it, already knowing that NSA would not be stopped. Politics is determined behind the scenes, not in front of the scenes.

• The NSA activity goes beyond party lines: “But the breadth of support in both parties for the amendment, which lost 217 to 205, underscored the extent of the disquiet in Congress with the notion that the NSA is collecting information on nearly every call made by nearly every American. … The strongest backers of the measure were an oil-and-water mix of deeply conservative tea party Republicans and some of the chamber's most liberal Democrats. A majority of Democrats bucked President Obama and voted for the amendment.”

• Privacy rights do not exist, even if stated in contracts: “Currently, the government obtains orders from a secret federal intelligence court requiring telecommunications providers to give the NSA calling records on nearly every American. Officials say they need all the records to be able to identify U.S. residents unknown to the intelligence community who may be working with foreign terrorists.”

• Phone records are not the only kind of information collected: “In a speech before the liberal Center for American Progress on Tuesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) hinted that there were other large-scale surveillance programs yet to be revealed. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Wyden has warned for years that surveillance laws were being interpreted in an expansive way that would surprise most Americans. … There is nothing in the Patriot Act that limits this sweeping bulk collection to phone records. … The government can use the Patriot Act's business records authority to collect, collate and retain all sorts of sensitive information, including medical records, financial records or credit card purchases."

When asked in a Senate hearing in June whether other private records of Americans are being collected, Gen. Keith Alexander, who heads the NSA, did not deny it. But he replied, "That would be outside of NSA."

So the question is, besides the NSA, who else is collecting private information?

Would Edward Snowden know? He is said to have information even more devastating to the U.S. Government than the information he has already leaked. As of July 24, 2013, however, the U.S. Government is putting pressure on Russia not to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum in Russia but to extradite him leaving Edward Snowden still stranded – after one month—at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.