The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the NSA collecting the bulk phone records from phone companies is illegal. However, the court has said that they will allow Congress to decide to either continue the program, it expires June 1, or to terminate it and replace it. Some want to replace it with a different act called, the U.S.A. Freedom Act. This will give the NSA limitations by how much data they can receive from public phone companies. It will also just give the NSA two hops where they focus on known terrorists and their records besides the three hops where they get almost all the phone records.
The U.S.A. Freedom Act would essentially just minimize the amount of records the NSA can look through. Next week is when Congress will come together to decide whether or not the Patriot Act will just expire and be replaced, or renewed. From the looks of it the support for the new act is split. Both democrats against republicans are split on the matter.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the one who’s at the front of the charge to keep the Patriot Act. Even when it was ruled that it is illegal he still showed his support. However, on the flip-side Senator Rand Paul has showed support of getting rid of the Patriot Act. Paul said that “a monumental decision for all lovers of liberty,” and that the Supreme Court needs “to strike down the NSA’s illegal spying program.” President Obama has shown support of the Freedom Act and wishes for that to be pushed forward.
The American Civil Liberties Union is static about the court’s ruling on the NSA’s practices. ACLU staff attorney Alex Abdo has said that “The court rightly rejected the government’s theory that it may stockpile information on all of us in case that information proves useful in the future. Mass surveillance does not make us any safer, and it is fundamentally incompatible with the privacy necessary in a free society.”
This ruling has made the NSA’s haystack smaller so they can find the needle faster. The NSA isn’t very happy about the ruling saying that they need all of it. Next week is when the decision will be made and if the Freedom Act will be passed. From the looks of who is showing support of the ruling it may be expired in the end. Only time will tell how much power the NSA will have.
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