
One vote. That’s all it needed for a bipartisan Senate modification to pass that would have stopped federal authorities from more accessing millions of Americans’ surfing records. But it didn’t. One Republican politician remained in quarantine, another was AWOL. Two Democratic senators– consisting of previous governmental hopeful Bernie Sanders– were
nowhere to be seen and neither returned an ask for remark. It was one of several changes provided in the effort to reform and reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Monitoring Act, the basis of U.S. spying laws. The law, signed in 1978, put constraints on who intelligence agencies could target with their huge listening and collection stations. But after the Edward Snowden revelations in 2013, lawmakers champed at the bit to change the system to much better secure Americans, who are mostly protected from the spies within its borders.
One privacy-focused modification, brought by Sens. Mike Lee and Patrick Leahy, passed– allows for more independent oversight to the generally one-sided and deceptive Washington, D.C. court that authorizes government security programs, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That change all but ensures the bill will recuperate to your house for further analysis.
Here’s more from the week.
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