Freedom Act Passes House, 338-88; Senate Likely to Ignore it

On Wednesday the House overwhelmingly approved the USA Freedom Act, 338-88, putting pressure on the Senate to approve it before the offensive Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act — the one that the government says allows unlimited surveillance of Americans’ communications metadata — expires on June 1.

 

The government’s interpretation of that law was ruled illegal by a federal court a few days earlier, putting more pressure on senators who support the surveillance state.

 

The current House bill is substantially weaker than one with a similar overall purpose that the House passed in the last Congress, which never made it out of the Senate before the November midterm elections. The new bill doesn’t end snooping. It merely shifts the responsibility for collecting that metadata from the National Security Agency to companies such as AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, which already keep customer records for as long as five years. All the NSA or the FBI would need to do to access that data is obtain permission from the secret FISA court — which nearly always grants it.

 

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