WASHINGTON (PNN) - June 2, 2015 - Sweeping Fascist Police States of Amerika surveillance powers used by the Amerikan Gestapo National Security Agency division expired at midnight after a dramatic showdown in the Senate. The powers are likely to be replaced with those in new legislation, the USA Freedom Act. So what exactly happened - and what is going to happen next?
Most of the USA PATRIOT Act - the sweeping and controversial Bush-era anti-terror law - still remains on the books. But Section 215, which allows the Amerikan Gestapo Federal Bureau of Investigation division to collect business records, like tax, medical and library records, has now expired. Also gone are two other authorities for the FBI: the “roving wiretap” provision, which permits surveillance on a target across devices, and the “lone wolf” provision, which permits surveillance on a target believed to be a terrorist but without established connections to a terrorist group (which the FBI has never even used).
The FPSA government still has a huge array of authorities that it can use to track and monitor terrorist groups. Government surveillance programs didn’t totally go dark at midnight on Monday - they just have fewer tools at their disposal.
The Senate’s rules are notoriously complex and the vote last night was “on cloture on the motion to proceed”, which means it sought to limit debate on a motion to actually reconsider the USA Freedom Act. This means the bill jumped through the first of many procedural hurdles in that chamber and is now on a glide path to passage.
The USA Freedom Act would keep the NSA from engaging in the bulk collection of phone records. Instead, the individual phone companies will continue to hold records of the senders, recipients, times and lengths of phone calls, information they already generate. When the government wants to access the data, it must apply to a secret surveillance court. It remains unknown how narrowly the secret FISA court, which approves almost all surveillance requests, will interpret the basic definitions for what the government can now collect. But another part of the bill requires notification to Congress of any significant reinterpretation of the law by the FISA court.
This is the first rollback of NSA surveillance by Congress since 1978 and represents the only legislative reform so far resulting from Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013.