Feinstein Bill 'Codifies' NSA's Worst Abuses

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/15-7



Bill proposed by senator with ties to intelligence contractors only strengthens spy agency

Feinstein Bill 'Codifies' NSA's Worst Abuses
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
Published on Friday, November 15, 2013 by Common Dreams

A bill recently proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein as an NSA reform law will do nothing to curb the spy agency's surveillance reach and will instead "codify" the NSA's worst abuses, an analysis by journalist Spencer Ackerman and published at The Guardian on Friday warns.

According to Ackerman, Feinstein's bill would officially legalize the NSA's ability to search "its troves of foreign phone and email communications for Americans’ information" without a warrant and "permit law enforcement agencies to search the vast databases as well."

The FISA Improvements Act, promoted by Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, would both make permanent a loophole permitting the NSA to search for Americans’ identifying information without a warrant – and, civil libertarians fear, contains an ambiguity that might allow the FBI, the DEA and other law enforcement agencies to do the same thing.

Feinstein’s bill passed the committee on an 11 to 4 vote on 31 October. An expanded report on its provisions released by the committee this week added details about the ability of both intelligence and law enforcement to sift through foreign communications databases that it accumulates under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.