USA Freedom Act

In Landslide Vote, House Overwhelmingly Passes USA Freedom Act without Amendments, Posted on May 14, 2015 Written by eff.org

Is this the year Con­gress passes a bill to limit NSA spy­ing? The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives cer­tainly hopes so. But just how strong that reform will be remains to be seen.

Min­utes ago, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed the USA Free­dom Act over­whelm­ingly with 338 yes votes and 88 no votes. EFF is neu­tral on the bill. We believe the House missed an oppor­tu­nity to strengthen the bill in light of the recent Sec­ond Cir­cuit deci­sion. We’re urg­ing the Sen­ate to take steps to strengthen the bill.

The bill is now sent over to the Sen­ate, where all eyes will be watch­ing. The Sen­ate is expected to take up the USA Free­dom Act any­time in the next two weeks, and is likely to vote on it by May 22. The Sen­ate is uniquely posi­tioned to improve the civil lib­er­ties pro­tec­tions in the USA Free­dom Act by adding addi­tional trans­parency and over­sight pro­vi­sions, adding stronger lim­i­ta­tions on the col­lec­tion of data on inno­cent peo­ple, and throw­ing out some of the recently-added pro­vi­sions to the bill that were included at the behest of the intel­li­gence com­mu­nity. Check out our detailed dis­cus­sion of what could be improved in the bill, and why a recent Sec­ond Cir­cuit Court rul­ing sets the stage for stronger sur­veil­lance reforms.

2015 can and should be the year for pow­er­ful sur­veil­lance reform, and we’re urg­ing the Sen­ate to rise to this opportunity.

How­ever, even as the USA Free­dom Act moves ahead, there are those within Con­gress who are seek­ing a rubber-stamp reau­tho­riza­tion of Patriot Act spy­ing author­i­ties. They’re try­ing to extend the mass sur­veil­lance of mil­lions of phone records of law-abiding cit­i­zens for another 5 years. Join us in telling Con­gress that we need real sur­veil­lance reform—not another rub­ber stamp.

Want to do more? Share our video on social media and embed our cam­paign ban­ner on any web­sites you run.

 

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• EFF’s Game Plan for End­ing Global Mass Surveillance
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  Filed Under: Corporatism/Fascism, Family Autonomy, New World Order, Police State, Property Rights, Surveillance
  http://agenda21news.com/2015/05/in-landslide-vote-house-overwhelmingly-passes-usa-freedom-act-without-amendments/