Senators Wyden And Udall Pledge To Strengthen USA Freedom Act By Closing Surveillance Backdoor
from the that-would-be-good dept
By now, it should be well known that Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall are the two key truth-tellers in Congress when it comes to what kind of surveillance is being done by the intelligence community. If they ask a question, assume the answer is "yes." With the introduction of the new USA Freedom Act in the Senate, we noted that, while it does take a big step forward, there is a lot more that can be done. Wyden and Udall have released a statement noting that they plan to seek to strengthen the bill with an amendment to close the backdoor search "loophole" which is used by the entire intelligence community to spy on Americans. It's unfortunate that Leahy didn't include that in the original bill -- and it suggests that there might not (yet) be enough support to close the backdoor. But this is a massively important issue -- as Wyden and Udall have been pointing out for quite some time now. Hopefully, enough noise can be made that this important change is added to the bill.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: backdoor searches, mark udall, privacy, ron wyden, section 702, surveillance, usa freedom act
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Response to: Joe Shades on Jul 29th, 2014 @ 2:36pm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No fly
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Seriously though, Wyden must be really low on political capital, because he keeps using every drop up on amendments and such that never seem to pass. Perhaps it reads well in a press release or bio page, but does it actually accomplish anything?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
If the attempted fixes 'don't go anywhere', blame the other cowardly senators who aren't willing to stand up for the people they are supposed to represent, not the people actually trying to address the problems and if not immediately fix entirely, at least start applying some patches to the more troublesome spots.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It's about trying to do things when there are enough people on side to get them done. Just making a grand statement and submitting a resolution that has little hope of being passed doesn't change anything. In fact, it's the worst kind of political hot air, a time waster.
The truth of democracy is you get things done when the majority of people agree with you, not when you just piss into the wind.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I'm afraid Capitalism easily trumps your Democracy, when it comes to getting things done.
Ask any lobbyist.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ahhaha
Cant wait to see the Eagle of Democracy Act which will make the elections more democratic by ensuring that third parties will never ever get near the voters.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]