{"id":120178,"date":"2014-05-23T02:49:14","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T02:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=120178"},"modified":"2014-05-23T02:51:03","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T02:51:03","slug":"usa-freedom-act-reform-doesnt-protect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/usa-freedom-act-reform-doesnt-protect\/","title":{"rendered":"Why The USA Freedom Act Doesn’t Protect You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas James<\/strong>
\n RINF Alternative News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The U.S. House of Representatives have passed a controversial modified version of the USA Freedom Act, that will apparently curb NSA surveillance powers. However privacy advocates state the bill allows for\u00a0the collection of\u00a0vast amounts of personal data.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nuala O\u2019Connor, the Center for Democracy and Technology president, voiced her concerns about the changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis legislation was designed to prohibit bulk collection but has been made so weak that it fails to adequately protect against mass, untargeted collection of Americans\u2019 private information,\u201d she said. \u201cThe bill now offers only mild reform and goes against the overwhelming support for definitely ending bulk collection.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wake of the revelations from Edward Snowden about mass surveillance by the NSA, US House Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) wrote the USA FREEDOM Act.<\/p>\n

Sensenbrenner, who was the lead author of the USA PATRIOT Act, a controversial anti-terror law, said the NSA had used the USA Patriot Act to overstep its boundaries.<\/p>\n

He said he introduced the legislation to end bulk surveillance and increase oversight.<\/p>\n

After the bill\u2019s creation, civil liberties groups and some politicians strongly supported its plan to end bulk surveillance, reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court\u2019s remit, and modify the allowable use of National Security Letters by the executive.<\/p>\n

Within the past few weeks, however, congressional committees modified the bill prior to submitting it for a vote, and many important supporters of the bill called this act foul.<\/p>\n

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization devoted to protecting fundamental rights regardless of technology, released a statement regarding the changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHouse Leadership reached an agreement to amend the bipartisan USA FREEDOM Act in ways that severely weaken the bill, potentially allowing bulk surveillance of records to continue,\u201d the organization said. \u201cThe Electronic Frontier Foundation cannot support a bill that doesn\u2019t achieve the goal of ending mass spying. We urge Congress to support uncompromising NSA reform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Specifically, the EFF does not support the terms under which agency staff can snoop, which includes a number of elements. The EFF\u2019s fear is that the agency will be able to say it is business as usual when it comes to collecting people\u2019s data.<\/p>\n

Prior to Congress revising the bill, it was going to include a special advocate in hearings held by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that would give the public\u2019s case in hearings over whether to allow particular target surveillance or not. However, Congress reduced this to having an advocate, if the court decides one is needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas James RINF Alternative News The U.S. House of Representatives have passed a controversial modified version of the USA Freedom Act, that will apparently curb NSA surveillance powers. However privacy advocates state the bill allows for\u00a0the collection of\u00a0vast amounts of personal data.\u00a0 Nuala O\u2019Connor, the Center for Democracy and Technology president, voiced her concerns about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-120178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}