Congress has sent legislation to the president reviving and remaking a disputed post-9/11 surveillance program two days after letting it temporarily expire.
The vote in the Senate Tuesday was 67-32. The House already has passed the bill, and President Barack Obama plans to sign it quickly.
The legislation will phase out, over six months, the once-secret National Security Agency bulk phone records collection program made public two years ago by agency contractor Edward Snowden.
It will be replaced by a program that keeps the records with phone companies but allows the government to search them with a warrant.
Senate Republican leaders opposed the House bill but were forced to accept it unchanged after senators rejected last-ditch attempts to amend it.
The story is being covered live by The Guardian.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, one of the most voluble defenders of the NSA in the past two years, has offered a more measured endorsement of Tuesday’s vote. She says she voted for the bill because it was “the best opportunity to quickly get [surveillance] programs back up and running.”
She emphasizes that the bill will allow “this and two other important counterterrorism programs to continue,” an allusion to Section 215 and the “lone-wolf” and “roving wiretap” provisions of the Patriot Act.
“I believe these programs are necessary to protect American lives and prevent terrorist attacks in our country,” she said in a statement.
Deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU, which did not back the USA Freedom Act, has nonetheless described the bill as “a milestone”.
“This is the most important surveillance reform bill since 1978, and its passage is an indication that Americans are no longer willing to give the intelligence agencies a blank check,” Jaffer said in a statement.
(Score: 3, Touché) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday June 02 2015, @09:50PM
Senate Passes USA Freedom Act
Who says Americans don't get irony?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 02 2015, @09:52PM
We get irony forced down our throats.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2015, @10:04PM
I get irony... it's sort of like a metal.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday June 02 2015, @10:47PM
It's like "goldy" and "bronzy" only it's made out of iron.
-Baldrick.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk