NSA bulk phone records collection to end despite USA Freedom Act failure

[lovuian]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/23/nsa-bulk-phone-records-collection-usa-freedom-act-senate

The administration, as suggested in a memo it sent Congress on Wednesday, declined to ask a secret surveillance court for another 90-day extension of the order necessary to collect US phone metadata in bulk. The filing deadline was Friday, hours before the Senate failed to come to terms on a bill that would have formally repealed the NSA domestic surveillance program.

“We did not file an application for reauthorization,” an administration official confirmed to the Guardian on Saturday.

The administration decision ensures that beginning at 5pm ET on 1 June, for the first time since October 2001 the NSA will no longer collect en masse Americans’ phone records.


Good

[darkangel218]

1. I hope its true, but i dont believe it yet.

How can we check they are not still recording us?

[lovuian]

2. McConnell can't save the NSA's surveillance program

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/23/mitch-mcconnell-nsa-usa-freedom-act-surveillance-program-delay-reform

Dysfunction in Congress has gotten so bad it might end up actually doing some good: the NSA’s mass surveillance powers under the Patriot Act are now on the verge of expiring after a dramatic 1am vote in the Senate on Saturday morning.
NSA bulk phone records collection to end despite USA Freedom Act failure
Read more

Senators were forced to work overtime well into Memorial Day weekend thanks to a manufactured controversy by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has known for years that the parts of the Patriot Act that allow the NSA to collect the phone records of millions of innocent people (known as Section 215) are set to expire on 1 June 2015, but decided to gin up an “emergency” and wait until the very last moment to try to extend them. He managed in the process to block the USA Freedom Act, a modest surveillance reform bill targeting the NSA that has overwhelming bipartisan support in the House, but he also failed by a large number of votes to extend the Patriot Act’s surveillance provisions for even one day.

So while Republicans managed to kill a bill that is supposed to stop the NSA’s bulk collection program, their ineptitude put the law underpinning it one step closer to extinction.

Send in the Clowns

[Exilednight]

3. They kept it secret the first time they did it, they sure

As hell aren't going to tell us when they do it again.

[lovuian]

4. that's so true

another whistleblower ? perhaps Germany
Bild quoted a US official saying the leaks were worse than those attributed to the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

“What the German government is now doing is more dangerous than what Snowden did,” the US official was quoted saying.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/23/germany-silent-leak-us-review-spying-cooperation

[2banon]

5. K&R

[Glassunion]

6. But what about the children!!!?!??!!!!1!11!!!!!!

[IDemo]

7. I have a bridge and a router to sell you if you believe they're going to pull the plug..

[lovuian]

8. kick