Freedom Act NSA and FBI collecting Internet data from US citizens

Prism NSA

With a large majority of 80 to 16 votes, the US Senate on Thursday reintroduced large parts of the USA Freedom Act passed in 2015 after the NSA scandal. The law is based on the Patriot Act passed by the US Congress following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The relevant Article 215, which gives the US security authorities broad powers to intercept and collect data also from US citizens, initially expired in March due to the Corona crisis. Now it should be applicable again soon in revised form.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act USA

The draft for a USA Freedom Reauthorization Act, which the House of Representatives had already approved in March, provides, among other things, that law enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI and the NSA continue in the anti-terror fight of companies "material things" how documents can usually be requested without judicial order. The term is very broad and includes data of all kinds.

Connection and location information
No longer have the representatives of the people extended the authority for the NSA and the FBI to continuously collect liaison and location information. The NSA’s long-disputed, by Edward Snowden revealed program for data retention on US citizens, which was already suffering from problems and was most recently inactive, is probably history.

However, the US Technical Intelligence Service and other security authorities can further collect and evaluate Internet data such as browser histories with websites visited, as well as search queries without a judge’s permission or specific suspicions. An intergroup amendment by Senators Ron Wyden (Democrats) and Republican Steve Daines narrowly missed the required majority with a missing vote. The endless story of "secret interpretations" and abuses of the Patriot Act continued, lamented Wyden.

United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies

Proposed correction for espionage laws
On the other hand, the Senate of Republican Mike Lee and his colleague Patrick Leahy of the Democrats were able to assert themselves with a correction proposal, according to which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which guards over the espionage laws, largely acting in secret, In future, an ombudsperson should be involved in "sensitive" matters as independent assistance. Otherwise, too, control of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is to be strengthened, as the House of Representatives had also stated. Due to the changes in the Senate, the law reform must pass the second chamber again, after which it would go to Donald Trump for signature.After FISA investigations in his advisory field, the US President had recently expressed his scepticism about the not very far-reaching reform initiative.