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wantkitteh [soylentnews.org] writes:

TechDirt [techdirt.com] reports:

Last night, we noted that an amendment from Reps. Thomas Massie and Zoe Lofgren was on the docket that had two provisions to stop two different kinds of surveillance: the first, taking away funding from "backdoor searches" which are a hugely problematic "loophole" that the NSA uses to do warrantless surveillance of Americans. In many ways, this is much worse than the bulk collection programs that were just hindered by the USA Freedom Act. The second part of the amendment was barring funds from being used to mandate "backdoors" into technology products -- another hugely important move. Thankfully, the amendment passed by a wide margin earlier today: 255 - to 174.

The article goes on to mention that a similar amendment was proposed and passed with a much wider margin in previous debates last year, but was later dropped when passing the higher profile "CRomnibus bill" required it.

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