In a midnight session, the Senate has voted down the USA Freedom Act, putting one of the legal bedrocks of the NSA’s bulk surveillance programs into jeopardy. The Patriot Act is set to expire at the end of the month, and the USA Freedom Act would have extended large portions of the act in modified form. Tonight’s failure to arrive at a vote makes it likely that many of those powers will automatically expire, although Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) scheduled a last-minute session on May 31st for one last shot at passing the bill.
The American people won a battle today, but the war is far, far from over.
Not really. The Senate voted against the House version of the bill, which would have officially ended the NSA bulk metadata collection. The Senate wants those programs to remain intact, and will likely pass a version that includes those programs.
Not only that but it’s a joke to think any of those programs are actually going to stop regardless of what the law says. Its already been proven laws are only for law-abiding citizens, not governments. And, the American government grants itself more power, it doesn’t take it away. The only way the NSA will ever be diminished is if its been replaced by something even more powerful.
Dr Strangelove approves this.
The Patriot Act means nothing, they have watched us, tracked us, arrested us without due cause for years. And the government ain’t the worst of it, you also have all these corporate Monopolies, these giant businesses to watch out for, despite our Bill of Right, Constitution, or Anti-Monopoly laws. Politics is a farce my friends.
At least in the US, it is. And people keep insisting we should ‘vote for change’. LOL, ain’t gonna happen.
Everybody knows this type of thing has been going on for God knows how many years. It will continue if it is illegal but at least if it is illegal there can and will be some recourse if an innocent gets wrongly accused or busted.
Treasonous activities of our government is not something I consider to be OS News.
Treasonous activities of ANY government is something I would consider to be worthy of any and all news sites. Drag em on the streets and hang em, let god sort em out!
I don’t know. Judging from what I see from most concepts of God, I don’t think I’d trust the god’s judgement anymore than the humans’.
hackus,
I get enought lies from the media and the government.
So when I go to a news site about operating systems and it is carries news not about operating systems, it hits a nerve.
One of the reasons why I love my LINUX OS is there isn’t a lie in the entire source tree.
It is a personal OASIS from lies and these scum bags.
hackus,
I wouldn’t go that far, FOSS has it’s share of it too. But that’s very poetic anyways
Apparently, still interesting enough for you to leave comment about it?
You didn’t have to read, and you surely didn’t have to take the time to leave a comment about it.
Thom, you are very much misguided in the analysis of this event.
This bill failed because lawmakers felt the added safeguards this bill introduced would handicap the ‘war on terror’. Lawmakers want more surveillance not less surveillance.
It’s only through their squabbling over the amount of surveillance that the U.S., very much temporarily, has no telecommunication surveillance.
K
…or at least none that we know of, or that has been released to the public.
Where’s Snowden when you need him?