After plenty of setbacks in Congress, advocates of surveillance reform are giving it another shot.
Leahy’s latest effort is drawing more praise from civil liberties groups.
“From our perspective, the bill is a pretty significant improvement from the House version,” said Neema Gulani of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’ll have a real impact.”
Nevertheless, civil liberties groups still have some complaints. Although Leahy’s bill ends “bulk collection” as civil liberties groups define it, (as opposed to how the government defines it) the bill doesn’t address so-called “backdoor searches.” The government is technically barred from collecting the content of Americans’ communications without a warrant, but Section 702 contains a loophole allowing the government to keep content it collects while ostensibly “targeting” exchanges believed to be taking place overseas.
Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Colorado Democratic Senator Mark Udall, two longtime critics of government surveillance, released a joint statement Tuesday afternoon praising Leahy’s bill but saying they wanted to alter the bill to address “backdoor searches.” “Congress needs to close this loophole, and we look forward to working with Chairman Leahy and our colleagues to address this issue when the bill comes before the full U.S. Senate,” Wyden and Udall said. As for the bill’s chances of passage, Leahy said Tuesday that the legislation was the result of months of negotiations with stakeholders, including those in the intelligence community.
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