A Spying “Reform” That Makes Things Worse

found online by Raymond

 
From libertarian Julian Sanchez of Cato Institute:

Donald Trump’s whiplash-inducing Twitter comments about the surveillance legislation his administration had just endorsed didn’t stop the House of Representatives from approving a bill to reauthorize the FISA Amendments Act for another six years, but if you watched the floor debate, you might come away thinking civil libertarians won at least a few concessions in the process. Defenders of the statute’s controversial Section 702, which authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreigners’ communications, rejected a proposal to require FBI agents to seek a warrant before querying the vast 702 database for Americans’ communications—a practice critics have dubbed a “backdoor search”—but did accept a narrower warrant requirement for queries conducted for criminal investigations unrelated to national security. Is this, as the bill’s boosters repeatedly insistence, a “compromise” that should provide some small consolation to civil libertarians?

Alas, no. There’s a good reason you won’t find any privacy advocates cheering even a partial victory following Thursday’s vote.

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