2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNSA reform: Bush-era powers expire as US prepares to roll back surveillance
Monday 1 June 2015 02.21 EDT
Sweeping intelligence capabilities exposed by Edward Snowden shut down as hawks concede defeat on first major surveillance reform in a generation
Sweeping US surveillance powers, enjoyed by the National Security Agency since the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks, shut down at midnight after a dramatic Senate showdown in which even the NSAs biggest supporters conceded that substantial reforms were inevitable.
Almost two years after the whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed to the Guardian that the Patriot Act was secretly being used to justify the collection of phone records from millions of Americans, critics of bulk surveillance went further than expected and forced the end of a range of other legal authorities covered by the Bush-era Patriot Act as well.
The expired provisions, subject to a sunset clause from the beginning of June onwards, are likely to be replaced later this week with new legislation the USA Freedom Act that permanently bans the NSA from collecting telephone records in bulk and introduces new transparency rules for other surveillance activities. The USA Freedom Act, once passed, will be the first rollback of NSA surveillance since the seminal 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
But until then, in addition to the expiration of the NSAs phone records collection, the FBI is prevented from using powers granted under the Patriot Act, including the pursuit of so-called business records relating to internet use, hotel and rental car records and credit card statements.
remainder: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/31/nsa-reform-senate-deal-as-patriot-act
sofa king
(10,857 posts)One just needs to look at the results to see what the purpose of the legislation really was: the number of terrorists apprehended by these laws is almost zero.
But the number of American citizens whose phone records were rifled in order to reverse-engineer non-violent drug offenses must now number in the millions.
Therefore, the purpose of the legislation is and always was the subduction and control of the American people. Mission accomplished! And it worked so well that we can safely assume that the only reason this legislation expired is because our keepers have moved on to other methods of enforcing the police-state.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)The problem getting past this bullshit is not going to be easy.
mgcgulfcoast
(1,127 posts)I fear President Obama will work with the warmonger McConnell and keep the spying going.