14 DAY TRIAL // Everyone that’s annoyed with the way the NSA has been violating the privacy of innocent people is about to get even more annoyed as there are very slim chances that the US Congress will actually do something about the issue this year.
The National Journal reports that unnamed sources are saying the NSA reform bill, also known under the name of “USA Freedom Act,” isn’t really a priority for Congress as it returns from recess, making it even more obvious that the US government doesn’t really want to find a solution.
It’s not even just about them not taking on the bill this month, but rather this year as a whole, as discussions may be getting pushed to 2015.
They are, however, quite likely to focus on ways to avoid another government shutdown and the elections that are closing in.
On the other hand, the politicians who have pushed the reforms have been urging the Congress to increase its oversight over the National Security Agency for more than a year, while civil liberties advocates have been putting pressure from the other side for the same purpose.
The USA Freedom Act seeks to put a dent in NSA's capabilities
The USA Freedom Act was put together to primarily deal with the one issue the US citizens have focused on out of the whole trove of data revealed by Snowden – the fact that the NSA collects metadata records.
This type of data includes the time a call was made, the duration of the call, as well as other information, but not the content of the call itself.
Up until now, the intelligence agency has collected such information freely. President Obama stepped forward earlier this year and said there would be some reforms to the way the NSA conducts business. Instead of promising to shut down the program altogether, Obama chose to let the program continue, saying that the NSA would simply not hold the data anymore, but would have to make special petitions to look through it. Since a third-party that would host all this data has yet to be selected, nothing has really changed so far.
The USA Freedom Act wants to make sure that the NSA has to go through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court first before getting its hands on people’s metadata.
The NSA has been lobbying against the new legislation, as well as other bills that would considerably affect the powers of the agency. There are many other issues that need to be addressed, however, such as the right to online privacy of people outside the United States.