- A surveillance reform bill backed by the Obama administration was introduced in the Senate on Tuesday, raising the possibility that Congress could this year take the National Security Agency out of the business of collecting and storing all US phone data.
Introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy, the bill is a counterpart to the USA Freedom Act, which the House of Representatives passed in May, but contains some stricter privacy measures and broader transparency requirements – the absence of which caused civil libertarians, privacy groups and technology firms to abandon their support for the House version. Many of them are backing Leahy’s bill.
Clearly not a comprehensive solution, but this is an important first step to reforming the NSA. Here's hoping it passes.
And what better way to ensure that this bill is shot down than if Obama announces his support? He gets to look good and the NSA gets to keep on keepin' on. Everybody wins! Well, everybody except regular citizens, but they're not really important.