Senate Leadership Pushing Through a Dangerous Surveillance Bill as Americans Are Focused on Covid-19

Published on Monday, March 16, 2020
by Common Dreams
Senate Leadership Is Pushing Through a Dangerous Surveillance Bill as Americans Are Focused on Covid-19

If McConnell's push through the Senate succeeds, it would renew the government’s power to warrantlessly acquire billions of data points on every person in the United States. These are terrifying powers to hand to President Trump.
by Sandra Fulton


On Monday evening, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to push through a vote on the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020, legislation that would reauthorize abusive government spying powers that expired yesterday, Sunday, March 15.

The Act passed the House late last week, but with significant bipartisan opposition from civil-liberties champions in Congress and from leading privacy, racial-justice and constitutional-rights groups, including my group Free Press Action.

If signed by President Trump, the bill would reauthorize Section 215 powers Congress established under the USA Patriot Act in 2001. Section 215 is the provision national-security agencies cited in the past to support their unwarranted collection of phone records of hundreds of millions of innocent people in the United States.

In the House, a bipartisan group of representatives called for meaningful reforms to federal spying powers, including Section 215. Democrats and Republicans who voted against the bill—and even some who voted for it—joined together to say that this legislation didn’t do enough to protect everyone’s privacy rights.

Yet in the Senate, Majority Leader McConnell has prevented Sens. Steve Daines (R-MT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and others from offering any amendments that would protect the privacy rights of Americans. Opposition to this legislation is gaining momentum, which is why McConnell is pushing so aggressively for a vote today while so much of the nation is focused on the coronavirus crisis.

more...

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/16/senate-leadership-pushing-through-dangerous-surveillance-bill-americans-are-focused?fbclid=IwAR1XuavWti-oOaLem6-PbUubfH0dpa2yaVOV_MxHV9h9she0vEp2-R9Y4ds