Category: section 215

Senate passes Patriot Act amendment strengthening independent oversight

[ad_1] Fifty-nine members of the Senate just voted in favor of my amendment to block warrantless government surveillance of Americans’ browser history. It failed by just one vote. McConnell is that much closer to giving Bill Barr the green light to spy on Americans’ private information. https://t.co/IV5ERbte48 — Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) May 13, 2020 The […]

NYT: $100 million US phone surveillance program produced two unique leads

[ad_1] After 2015, the USA Freedom Act replaced NSA mass surveillance of American’s call metadata that had been enacted under the Patriot Act and Section 215. While it didn’t go so far as to completely reform the system as groups like the EFF and ACLU hoped, it changed things by having phone companies collect the […]

Bipartisan bill would scale back key section of the Patriot Act

[ad_1] While there are a variety of facets to the bill, the most significant aspect of it is that it would prohibit the warrantless collection of cell-site and GPS geolocation data, as well as internet browsing and search history by US intelligence agencies. Additionally, the bill would eliminate the relevance clause that had allowed the […]

The NSA says it stopped tracking cellphone locations without a warrant

[ad_1] Last year the Supreme Court ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that a search warrant is required for law enforcement to perform cellphone tower searches to track someone’s location. The Daily Beast reported on a letter sent by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to Senator Ron Wyden affirming that ever since […]