USA Freedom Act Passes: What We Celebrate, What We Mourn, and Where We Go From Here
From the post:
The Senate passed the USA Freedom Act today by 67-32, marking the first time in over thirty years that both houses of Congress have approved a bill placing real restrictions and oversight on the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers. The weakening amendments to the legislation proposed by NSA defender Senate Majority Mitch McConnell were defeated, and we have every reason to believe that President Obama will sign USA Freedom into law. Technology users everywhere should celebrate, knowing that the NSA will be a little more hampered in its surveillance overreach, and both the NSA and the FISA court will be more transparent and accountable than it was before the USA Freedom Act.
It’s no secret that we wanted more. In the wake of the damning evidence of surveillance abuses disclosed by Edward Snowden, Congress had an opportunity to champion comprehensive surveillance reform and undertake a thorough investigation, like it did with the Church Committee. Congress could have tried to completely end mass surveillance and taken numerous other steps to rein in the NSA and FBI. This bill was the result of compromise and strong leadership by Sens. Patrick Leahy and Mike Lee and Reps. Robert Goodlatte, Jim Sensenbrenner, and John Conyers. It’s not the bill EFF would have written, and in light of the Second Circuit’s thoughtful opinion, we withdrew our support from the bill in an effort to spur Congress to strengthen some of its privacy protections and out of concern about language added to the bill at the behest of the intelligence community.
Even so, we’re celebrating. We’re celebrating because, however small, this bill marks a day that some said could never happen—a day when the NSA saw its surveillance power reduced by Congress. And we’re hoping that this could be a turning point in the fight to rein in the NSA.
For years, the larger EFF community has proven itself capable of fighting bad legislation that would hamper rights and freedoms online, with the clearest example being the 2012 annihilation of the Internet blacklist legislation SOPA. Lawmakers have feared that technology users—organized, politically-savvy, articulate, and educated about the law and its effects on tech—would strike out to stop their misguided legislative efforts. But for all our many victories in stopping bad legislation, we have struggled to pass bills that would better protect our freedoms. Passing a bill is far more difficult than simply killing a bad bill, and takes more sustained pressure from the public, a massive publicity campaign around a central issue, deep connections to lawmakers, and the coordination of diverse groups from across the political spectrum.
The USA Freedom Act shows that the digital rights community has leveled up. We’ve gone from just killing bad bills to passing bills that protect people’s rights.
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Surprising that Congress went as far as it did, but I have some questions for the EFF.
What makes you think the NSA or any other part of the intelligence apparatus will follow the law passed by Congress?
We already know that the director of national intelligence was willing to lie to Congress and that other illegal activity has been concealed from Congress (and the public) for years.
Why does the EFF suddenly have confidence that known lawbreakers, who proclaim they aren’t lying, this time, should be taken at face value?
It is altogether possible that telcos will indeed store data, the NSA and others will their parts in requesting data, all while still collecting all data, legal and illegal.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist but we do have documented cases of the intelligence community doing that very thing. “It’s for the good of the country” and all that delusional crap.
I see nothing to celebrate unless and until Congress defunds and dismantles under supervision of random members of the public and press all of the current intelligence apparatus.
Did the US intelligence apparatus foresee the overthrow of the Shah of Iraq? The assassination of Sadat? Or Rabin? Or the fall of the Berlin Wall? 9/11? The American public should be asking what we are getting for all the effort of the US intelligence services? So far, loss of privacy, a lot of insecurity and paper waste.
(No, I don’t credit stories whispered in secret by Saigon warriors, not at all.)
Update: There are a variety of others who have reached the same conclusion:
Why It’s Quite Premature to Celebrate the Death of the Surveillance State by Norman Solomon.
USA Freedom Act gives NSA everything it wants — and less by Joshua Kopstein. (a “nothingburger for the privacy community”)
How The USA Freedom Act is Actually Reducing Freedom in America by Virgil Vaduva.