(Editor's Note: The following is a guest blog from Amie Stepanovich, the main board of policies Access)
Today, the House of representatives passed a watered-down version of the Act FREEDOM USA. How watered down? The revised bill won half of its co-sponsors.
The USA FREEDOM bill was introduced last year to reform the NSA's surveillance activities. Access approved the bill when it was introduced, but it has undergone significant changes in the last week and the current version of the bill is far from advancing meaningful protections for US and international users of 'Internet.
In today's floor debate, Representative Lofgren, one of the co-authors of the bill, dissented with the current text. Rep. Lofgren noted the bill may still allow the bulk collection in some cases, because of the ambiguity, and further argued that its transparency provisions have been significantly weakened. She explained that the two groups and digital rights of companies withdrew their support for the proposal gutted. Representative Sensenbrenner, sponsor of the bill, expressed disappointment in the measures taken to sweeten the bill, but said it would be a first step towards reform of the NSA.
House leaders and the Obama administration met earlier this week to further amend the bill, which was already weakened before passing on to the Judicial Chamber and committees intelligence ago two weeks. It is greatly disappointing to witness the parliamentary leaders succumb to the pressure applied by the Obama administration and others, turning their backs on the compromised US version FREEDOM that so initially supported
The last minute changes weaken the reform by NSA .:
- Introducing the ambiguity in the definition of "terms of specific selection," which was the key to the proposal of the bill to end the collection bulk
- Removing a provision prohibiting reverse targeting of communications US persons
- Give the intelligence community control over internal review for declassification
- Appearing to tolerate NSA practice to review the content of international communications on targeted individuals permissions transparent reporting
- water down to business and communications services
As the bill preparing to go to the Senate for further consideration, access will continue to fight for meaningful reform of the NSA practices that are not transparent, not accountable and not in line with the standards of rights man.
(Amie Stepanovich is Senior Advisor access policies. She is an expert on domestic surveillance, cyber security, and the right to privacy. In Access, Amie has projects on digital due process and responds to threats at the intersection of human rights and monitoring communications).
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