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Republicans Block Latest Attempt At Curbing NSA Power

Posted by Soulskill on from the and-everybody-will-have-forgotten-about-it-in-two-years dept.

Robotron23 writes: The latest attempt at NSA reform has been prevented from passage in the Senate by a margin of 58 to 42. Introduced as a means to stop the NSA collecting bulk phone and e-mail records on a daily basis, the USA Freedom Act has been considered a practical route to curtailment of perceived overreach by security services, 18 months since Edward Snowden went public. Opponents to the bill said it was needless, as Wall Street Journal raised the possibility of terrorists such as ISIS running amok on U.S. soil. Supporting the bill meanwhile were the technology giants Google and Microsoft. Prior to this vote, the bill had already been stripped of privacy protections in aid of gaining White House support. A provision to extend the controversial USA Patriot Act to 2017 was also appended by the House of Representatives.

5 of 445 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt by asylumx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Obamacare passed without one Republican vote in the House or the Senate. When was that last called a Strictly Partisan Bill?

    Um... every day?

  2. Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !! by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You're willing to sit on the sidelines while ISIS engages in a campaign of genocide and ethnic/religious cleansing?

    Why were we fine with doing this when the warlords of Africa were doing it? Or Bosnia?

    Or anyplace else on this list:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  3. PATRIOT Act by Gary+Perkins · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder if maybe attaching a PATRIOT extension to the bill might have anything to do with it dying.

  4. Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt by LF11 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According to Dr. Paul, the bill didn't go far enough (I agree). It also extended the PATRIOT act. Are you really led around that easily, to think that helping to kill this bill somehow makes him an authoritarian stooge?

    Failure to pass this bill means we'll get another chance. The pressure is on. Once they pass a bill, nobody is going to want to pass another one for a while, so the first one has to get it right. The ACA is an example of a bill that was slammed through, and got a lot of things wrong. Let's not do the same thing with limiting the NSA.

    Also, Rand Paul does not claim to be a libertarian, and if you actually knew anything about libertarians you should have known that libertarians tend to give him a giant stink-eye.

  5. Bad bill. by Chas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Honestly? In its final form? The FREEDOM act was BADLY compromised. To the point where it would, in some ways, be achieving the OPPOSITE of the bill's original intent and could compromise our rights

    I'd rather a bill like that get left on the floor.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!