The USA Freedom Act set the first legal limits on spying in a generation, and were immediately followed by 3 more surveillance-blocking amendments from the House, and now, a week later, there’s 2 more bipartisan curbs on surveillance.
On Wednesday, Zoe Lofgren’s [D-CA] amendment barred the use of Congressionally allocated funds to put backdoors into crypto, while Thomas Massie’s [R-KY] amendment closed a loophole that the NSA abuses to conduct mass surveillance.
While this is great news, I’m somewhat surprised and disappointed that the margin of victory here was lower than a nearly identical amendment last year (which was approved 293 to 123. It’s possible that some of last year’s votes were in protest to the falling apart of the USA Freedom Act a year ago — whereas since it passed this year, some felt it was okay to shift their vote here. Still, in many ways, this has the potential to be a much bigger deal and much more important than the USA Freedom Act, because those backdoor searches are a huge problem.
House Votes To Block Backdoor Searches And To Block Backdooring Encryption [Mike Masnick/Techdirt]
(Image: Zoe Lofgren 109th pictorial, PD)
