“The Senate Intelligence Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would tighten controls on the government’s sweeping electronic eavesdropping programs but allow them to continue,” Patricia Zengerle and Joseph Menn report for Reuters. “In a classified hearing, the panel voted 11-4 for a measure that puts new limits on what intelligence agencies can do with bulk communications records and imposes a five-year limit on how long they can be retained.”
“Despite growing national concern about surveillance, the “FISA Improvements Act” would not eliminate programs that became public this year after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents describing how the government collects far more internet and telephone data than previously known,” Zengerle and Menn report. “If approved by the full Senate and the House and signed by the president, the act would require the special court that oversees the collection programs to designate outside officials to provide independent perspective and assist in reviewing matters that present novel or significant interpretations of the law. It also requires Senate confirmation of the NSA director and inspector general.”
“The bill ran into immediate opposition from technology companies, civil-liberties groups and another chairman in the majority Democratic Senate. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Republican Representative James Sensenbrenner this week introduced a bill to end what they termed the government’s “dragnet collection” of information,” Zengerle and Menn report. “A critical role in the debate may be played by Google Inc, Facebook Inc, Apple Inc and other big technology companies, which have been whipsawed by intelligence agency collection of their data and the concerns of users, especially those overseas with little protection from U.S. spying. On Thursday, those three companies, joined by Microsoft Corp, Yahoo Inc and AOL Inc, wrote to Leahy and other members of Congress to ‘applaud’ the contributions of his bill.”
Zengerle and Menn report, “They repeated earlier calls that they be allowed to disclose the scope of their cooperation, adding that ‘our companies believe that government surveillance practices should also be reformed to include substantial enhancements to privacy protections and appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms.’ The tech companies’ anger mounted after a report in Wednesday’s Washington Post that the NSA had intercepted massive internal transfers of Google and Yahoo data overseas.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: United States Constitution, Amendment IV:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Join The Electronic Frontier Foundation in calling for a full congressional investigation here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
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