Leahy Bill Aims To Rein In Government Snooping

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

USA Freedom Act is designed to limit scope and add transparency in collection of data

In the wake of disclosures first made over a year ago by U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Senate has introduced a new bill that moves down the long, arduous road toward surveillance reform. The reforms are encompassed in the USA Freedom Act, an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Discipline Over Monitoring.

Sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the measure would ban bulk collection of domestic information, limit the scope of searches by government agencies, and add transparency and reporting requirements. It would also reform procedures in the FISA Court, which oversees requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the U.S.

Leahy's legislation builds on the USA Freedom legislation passed in the House of Representative in May. President Obama had pledged in a January policy speech to enact surveillance reforms. “If enacted, this bill would represent the most significant reform of government surveillance authorities since Congress passed the USA Patriot Act 13 years ago,” says Leahy in a floor statement.

In a backgrounder on the reforms, Senator Leahy claims that the USA Freedom Act of 2014 provides the Intelligence Community with the authority it needs to collect phone records in a more targeted manner. Leahy also wants improved transparency for government surveillance, including a report on the number of individuals whose data has been collected. Going a step further, Leahy's bill also provides options for private enterprises to be able to better publicly disclose information on requests for information received from the government. “This is a debate about Americans’ fundamental relationship with their government— about whether our government should have the power to create massive databases of information about its citizens,” says Leahy.

“The Senate bill is unquestionably better than the House version,” Alan Butler, appellate advocacy counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, tells TechNewsWorld. “It puts back in what the House took out of the original bill,” he says. “The House diluted a lot of privacy protections in the original bill.” Although it's difficult to pass anything in Congress these days, it appears that Leahy has all his ducks in a row. Even the sponsor of the House measure is supporting the new USA Freedom Act.

“Today, Chairman Leahy introduced a compromise that strengthens the privacy protections of the House bill while retaining support from the Administration and intel community,” F. James Sensenbrenner Jr (R-WI), says. “By reclaiming important provisions stripped from our original bill, tech giants and privacy advocates have reestablished their support,” he adds. “I hope the Senate works expeditiously to pass the USA Freedom Act and eagerly await the President signing it into law.”

At this point, the amended USA Freedom Act is getting a mostly positive reaction. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) applauded the reforms in a blog post. Though the EFF notes the Leahy USA Freedom Act is a step in the right direction, there are still some concerns. “The legislation may not completely end suspicion-less surveillance,” states the EFF. “The USA FREEDOM Act of 2014 is a real first step because it creates meaningful change to NSA surveillance right now, while paving the way for the public to get more information about what the NSA is doing.”

“If the Senate passes the bill, it will be the first time since passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 that the chamber has taken action to constrain the intelligence community, and the first time Congress has a real shot at restoring the crucial privacy protections lost in the Patriot Act,” writes American Civil Liberties Union's Neema Singh Guliani in a blog post.