Compliance Management, Government Regulations, Privacy

USA Freedom Act passes House Judiciary Committee

The USA Freedom Act, a bill to end bulk collection of Americans' telephone data, passed the House Judiciary Committee, setting it up for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill passed the committee with a vote of 25-2, indicating support for seriously curbing the National Security Agency's (NSA) metadata collection, according to The Hill. Although the legislation would end bulk telephone data collection, it would also extend certain parts of the Patriot Act until 2019.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published a blog post on the USA Freedom Act calling it a “first, small step in the right direction,” but also noting that it contains faults, in the EFF's opinion.

The organization wrote that the new act doesn't address Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the government to use PRISM and “upstream” mass surveillance.

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