
One man takes on the NSA
Spying incidents and mass surveillance was enough for one man that is now taking on the great NSA. Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican out of Wisconsin proposed a bill that could potentially end NSA's mass surveillance probramme existing today.
The bill will eventually end up in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that will hold a markup of an amended version of the USA Freedom Act. The bill was well received in the tech world. This bill looks to counter the one currently with the House Intelligence Committee that does not restrict well enough NSA.
Mozilla, DropBox, Reddit and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have all signed a letter stating their support for the proposed bill. Jim Sensenbrenner has been very vocal about surveillance practices of NSA and his proposal is viewed as the best legislative reform package in Congress.
However, NSA will not have both hands tied up. It will have the permission to act when it needs to, but no when it wants to. “The attorney general may authorize the emergency production of tangible things, provided that such an application is presented to the court within seven days. If the court denies an emergency application, the government may not use any of the information obtained under the emergency except in instances of a threat of death or seriously bodily harm,” part of the Section 215 proposed bill.
The same bill would also give telecomm companies that provide federal authorities customer data, liability protection. “We look forward to taking up this legislation on Wednesday and continuing to work with House leaders to reform these so called spying programs,” was written in a joint statement released by Judiciary members.