The US Senate did not have 2 votes to limit the activities of the NSA

More obstacles for mass surveillance will be only in the summer of 2015

So far, the Democrats have a majority in the current Senate, but next year the Republicans will have it. That is why, using its last chance, the US Democratic Party tried to push through a law restricting the authority of the National Security Agency.

What is the USA FREEDOM Act? All its name is an intricate backronym: Dragnet-Collection and Online Monitoring Act, which means "the act of uniting and strengthening America by fulfilling rights and stopping listening, special operations to collect information and online monitoring ". The first version of the bill appeared on October 29, 2013. For comparison: the scandal involving Snowden, the NSA and the PRISM program began on June 6 of the same year.

The FREEDOM Act aimed to put an end to the practice of selecting information from US telecoms and storing it on the servers of the National Security Agency. Instead, it was proposed to leave the data of telephone calls on the side of data transmission providers and to force the NSA to obtain permission from the Foreign Intelligence Court for any requests. In this case, not all information would be issued, but only given with some specific, narrowing the search parameters.
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In addition, the draft law provided for the possibility of service providers to provide the public with more data on the number and type of requests from government agencies. Now it is not even known how many people are in the clutches of the National Security Agency.

And telecommunications companies are really ready to go for it. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss phoned four large telecom operators and asked if they would agree to store the necessary data. Two of them agreed, the other two have already stored this information.

A US foreign intelligence court could get a special privacy advocate that would eliminate the one-sided nature of the discussions in this body.

Only 58 votes were cast for the adoption of this act and 42 against . 60 votes were required for adoption. Apparently, the effect of Snowden's revelations faded away after only a year and a half.

Opponents of the bill argue that the FREEDOM Act will impede the work of the National Security Agency, while exacerbating the influence of terrorist groups. The former head of the NSA and the CIA, General Michael Hayden, and the former US Attorney General, General Michael Mukeysey, have already managed to christen the project "NSA reform, which was only like ISIS."

It is alleged that only 22 people in the NSA have access to private information. But, as it turned out, this number is not limited at the legislative level ; it may be more. Moreover, 22 people may allow a search with “reasonable expressed suspicions”, but far more people can access the results.

It is reported that in 2013 there were 288 search queries. As it turned out later, there is also a substitution of concepts: there were 288 search selectors, some were carried out several times.

More supporters of mass surveillance say that she helped expose more than 50 terrorist designs. If you have access to the database of all telephone conversations, you can quickly get all the contacts of the suspect. But Senator Patrick Leahy, who presented the draft version in question, states that in fact the number of prevented attacks can be close to only one.

The White House supported the bill because it created a balance between the need for surveillance, while preserving the constitutional freedoms of Americans. Among the unexpected supporters of the bill is the former director of the National Intelligence, James Klepper.

The bill does not cover some aspects affected by leaks from Edward Snowden, for example, it does not protect against e-mail listening.

Of course, there is no question of respecting the private lives of non-people, in whose pocket there is no blue passport with a bald eagle. Even if the FREEDOM Act were adopted, it would still be better for all of us to once again think about encrypting our data and monitoring network security: in addition to storing emails indefinitely, the National Security Agency conducts active attacks and hacks foreign companies' computers , monitors information security enthusiasts open operating systems , leaves backdoors in computer systems , uses advanced gadgets for surveillance , knows about critical vulnerabilities before they are fixed , and added daily There are 1-2 billion entries in your search engine , and employees of the organization have fun searching for intimate photos .

New problems for mass surveillance will be only in the summer of next year, then section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act ends. We should expect great confrontations when considering the issue of its extension.

Based on Wired , Ars Technica and Techdirt .