Section215
Latest
Senate blocks NSA reform bill and Patriot Act extensions
The USA Freedom Act aimed at addressing the NSA's bulk collecting of phone call metadata was approved by the House of Representatives ten days ago, but blocked by the Senate tonight (live video stream here). The Section 215 provisions of the Patriot Act used to enact the program are set to expire June 1st, and it could go away if a compromise isn't reached to extend it. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky filibustered to push the vote to this late hour, while Sen. Mitch McConnell pushed for a series of extensions to the program, claiming the security of the country could be at risk. The Senate is taking a weeklong Memorial Day break, but will come back on May 31st for more discussion and probably more voting. The voting is done for tonight, but we expect much more discussion over the next week.
House approves NSA reform
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the USA Freedom Act on Wednesday in a sweeping 338-88 vote, moving forward legislation that would curtail the NSA's bulk collection of data. The bill now moves to the Senate, which must approve it or find a compromise by June 1 -- this is when the provision of the Patriot Act that allows the NSA to collect metadata expires. The Senate is expected to vote by May 22. The White House supports the USA Freedom Act, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) opposes it and wishes to extend Section 215 of the Patriot Act, allowing the NSA to continue collecting bulk data. Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and other major tech companies have been campaigning in support of the USA Freedom Act as part of the Reform Government Surveillance coalition since late 2014. Early in May, a federal court ruled that the NSA's collection of metadata was illegal. Read all about Section 215 here. [Image credit: AFP/Getty Images]
Racing to June 1: The fight to control the Patriot Act
If Defcon is the cultural Comic-Con of security conferences, then RSA is more like the business-focused Game Developers Conference (GDC), though largely packed with government-corporate attendees. At the midpoint of a long day during last month's RSA San Francisco 2015, the largest security conference in the United States (with a record-breaking 33,000 in attendance), Congressman Mike Rogers took the stage to debate in favor of renewing the Patriot Act's Section 215, sometimes called the "library records" provision. "Renewing the Patriot Act" at RSA was about one of our nation's most pivotal public pain points in recent history -- Section 215′s facilitation of bulk telephone record collection. Despite the high-profile nature of this debate and its critical timing, it was a bizarrely toothless, kind of clueless, softball argument that somehow managed to completely avoid discussing why the renewal of this section of the Patriot Act, right now, is such a big deal.
