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posted by n1 on Tuesday June 02 2015, @09:35PM   Printer-friendly
The Associated Press reports:

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.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by TLA on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:36AM

    by TLA (5128) on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:36AM (#191380) Journal

    The NSA hands off data collection/retention to the telcos to get around the 4th Amendment, then they use John Doe warrants to trawl it. Which means they get access to THE LOT. And what judge ISN'T going to sign off on a FISA John Doe under USAFA?

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  • (Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:42PM

    by Kromagv0 (1825) on Wednesday June 03 2015, @01:42PM (#191581) Homepage

    It is even worse than that the national security letters are still allowed and explicitly mentioned in this shit legislation. So now all that is needed is to send them a NSL without a warrant and the data can be handed over. I mean why bother going to the FISA court which may take a small amount of time and has a very remote chance of not approving your request when you can just issue a NSL to the company in question and then they also have to STFU.

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