Obama Admin asks secret FISA court to re-start dragnet.
Source article from The Guardian
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The Backdrop
By Susan Modaress @SusanModaress
After weeks of political showdown, infighting and drama, the Senate finally passed the USA Freedom Act, a bill to reform provisions of one of the National Security Agency’s most controversial surveillance programs, The US Patriot Act, which went into effect after 9/11. The USA Freedom Act passed by an overwhelming majority and once on his desk, President Obama signed it into law.
The bill restored three key sections of the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law that expired at midnight on June 1 and extended through 2019 the following capabilities: roving wiretaps that allows NSA to monitor individuals even if they switch phones or computers, searches of business records, and conducting surveillance of “lone wolves”—individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities but with no official links to recognized terrorist groups.
However, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the most controversial and possibly the most important to many civil liberty advocates, was amended by the USA Freedom Act to stop the NSA from continuing its mass phone data collection program. The data will now be retained by phone companies and the NSA will have to get permission from a federal court to obtain information about targeted individuals.
The White House has sold the USA Freedom Act as a reform bill to the NSA, but what do these amendments really mean for privacy advocates and how the NSA plans to operate in the future? And considering the fact that there has been no evidence of mass data collection ever thwarting a terrorist threat, will anyone even miss it?
The answer may have come today as the White House has requested that the mass collection dragnet be turned back on. It is a strange request, especially given the fact that the President’s signature is still drying on the USA Freedom Act, a bill that was specifically passed to reform this type of warrantless mass surveillance.
After signing the USA Freedom Act, a reform bill that specifically prohibits the mass warrantless collection of Americans’ data, President Obama asked the secret FISA court to turn the dragnet back on.
- The Patriot Act let NSA collect Americans’ data w/o a warrant.
- May 7, an appeals court ruled this meta data collection illegal.
- But on June 1, the Patriot Act expired anyways.
- June 2, President Obama signed the USA Freedom Act into law.
- It lets NSA access people’s data, but only with a warrant.
- NSA will have to ask phone companies for specific data.
- Today, Obama asked that warrantless collection be turned on.
- This is the same dragnet that the USA Freedom Act forbids.
- USA Freedom Act says there is a 6-month transition period.
- But the expiration of Patriot Act makes this a sticky legal issue.