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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: 2) by frojack on Tuesday June 02 2015, @10:59PM
CREDO mobile? Are you serious?
You do understand what a n mobile virtual network operator is don't you? You do know that NOBODY is going to talk to CREDO, they are going to go direct to Sprint. Credo hasn't got any actual network.
All they do is funnel some money to Dianne Feinstein, who fought tooth and nail for this bill.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:14AM
I was serious in that they are the only apparent NGO offering cellular service, not serious in that they are an option. If they were, I would have their phone right? :)
My point was that even organizations ostensibly acting for our best interests are simply to constrained by government regulations to work with them directly.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by TLA on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:47AM
would that be the same Senator who was photographed with her finger on the trigger of a loaded AR15 in a room full of journalists?
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by TLA on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:51AM
oh my bad, it was an AK47 with a drum magazine. My point stands. She's a fucking psychopath.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday June 03 2015, @03:43PM
Mostly they're funneling money to groups like the ACLU -- the people who have been campaigning against the USA PATRIOT act for over a decade and the ones who originally filed the lawsuit which recently got section 215 ruled unconstitutional.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2015, @09:25AM
The courts didn't get to rule on its constitutionality because they established that 215 didn't authorize mass spying, thus making the programs illegal if and only if done under that section; after establishing that, the court case ended and no ruling on its constitutionality was given.