A look at how the new bill is reinvigorating the privacy discussion in the United States
The USA FREEDOM Act was approved by a 67 to 32 margin vote by the Senate on June 2. Later that evening, it was officially enacted as President Barack Obama signed it into law. It is meant to replace the USA PATRIOT Act that expired the previous day, on June 1.
The USA FREEDOM Act comes as a landmark bill in the ongoing privacy debate in the U.S. It follows the saga of Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency (NSA) revelations two-years-ago, when the massive collection of phone records by the U.S. government was brought to the public’s attention.
This collection initially began about 14-years-ago, shortly after the September 11th attacks. However, according to an independent analysis conducted last year of 225 U.S. terrorism cases, the NSA’s collection of phone records “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.”
Upon Snowden’s revelations, this practice was quickly deemed illegal by legal experts, and then confirmed to be unconstitutional by a federal court last month.
One of the main purposes of the USA FREEDOM Act is to end the collection of private phone records by the U.S. government. The collection of phone records will now fall under the jurisdiction of phone companies, which the NSA will need to petition in order to gain access.
The bill will limit government surveillance “to the greatest extent reasonably practical.” This limits the collection of data related to geographical location, such as a city or area code.
It also requires that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court appoints advocates to ensure that the public’s best interests are represented in cases that pose new risks.
Companies will also have more freedom to publicly disclose surveillance inquiries made to them by the government.
However, many aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act have not changed, and have merely been extended into the new bill. For instance, the FBI is still allowed to wiretap suspects who have multiple phones, and in some cases, will still be allowed to survey suspects with no known connections to terrorist groups.
The government will also still be allowed to collect data from phone companies up to “two hops” off the call records of a suspect, but the government now needs reasonable suspicion of the suspect’s involvement with a terrorist organization.
Additionally, there is a six-month “transition” period built into the bill, during which the bulk collection of phone records is still permitted. Though the NSA collection was officially shut down at midnight on June 1, the program is set be re-launched, only to be shut down again in December.
Other potential loopholes with the supposed limit on U.S. government surveillance have been identified.
“It does end most of the bulk collection of data, and it makes a number of very substantial and very positive changes. But it leaves a number of other things undone,” said New York City Congressman Jerry Nadler in an interview with Public Radio International (PRI).
He adds that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 is also in need of reformation.
“If someone abroad communicates with an American and we pick up that conversation or that information…you could have the backdoor spying of Americans. We really have to rein that in to make sure that doesn’t happen, and we have such an amendment, which we will be offering to the military appropriations bill in about two weeks.”
The USA FREEDOM Act represents a new chapter in the privacy debate in the US, but clearly, the discussion is long from over.