Senate Introduces Its Version Of USA Freedom Act; Greatly Improved, But Could Still Be Better

from the a-step-in-the-right-direction dept

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As was widely expected, Senator Patrick Leahy has introduced the new Senate version of the USA Freedom Act . As you recall, there was a semi-decent bill in the House that had made it pretty far, before being completely gutted by the White House. From what we've heard, the Senate has been negotiating with the White House pretty intensely over the past month or so, and has taken a stance that it wouldgive in the way the House did. The end result is a much stronger bill than what the House passed -- and one that actually would blockof the NSA's more nefarious activities. As Access notes, there is much to like about the new bill, which is almost as good as the original USA Freedom Act in the House from last fall.That's not to say it's perfect. As with the original USA Freedom Act, the reforms only go so far, and it leaves much to be desired. There are also some big and dangerous loopholes that are quite problematic . As some have noted, there's some good, bad and ugly in the bill.However, if this bill moves forward it still would beand aeffort to push back on the intelligence community's domestic surveillance efforts. There's still a process that it needs to go through, including getting approved by the full Senate (the rumor is it may skip the whole committee markup/approval process), and then getting reconciled with the House version (oh, yeah, and getting the President to sign it). Anywhere along the way, there may be efforts to water it down, as happened with the House bill. However, given all the negotiations that we've heard went into this, there's at least some belief that something very close to what was introduced today has a real chance -- and that's a good thing. This bill also has strong bipartisan support, including support by some powerful Senators who rarely agree on much. That's a good sign.Even if you think -- as we do -- that much more needs to be done, there are reasons to support this bill as a stepping stone in the right direction and real pushback on the ability of the NSA to do mass surveillance.

Filed Under: nsa, patrick leahy, senate, surveillance, usa freedom act, white house