A Big moment for Americans: the US Senate passes the NSA Surveillance Reform
Post the 9/11 incident, the US Patriots Act came into fore. However, this legislation aloe the National Security Agency to spy or track anyone's call history, though there is no official order for the same.
After the shocking revelation by Edward Snowden, whistleblower and former NSA contractor, many civil liberty advocates, as well as the libertarians, pleaded for the change in the law. This paved the path for the alteration in the USA Freedom Act.
Passed on a vote of 67-32, the USA Freedom Act puts a break to the notorious Section 125 of the Patriots Act, which allowed the NSA to collect telephonic data relating to American citizens without any permission or knowledge of anyone, and also included information on who called whom when.
However, the US Freedom Act still required such metadata collection by the major telecom companies of the U.S., and authorities may access the information only with a warrant from the shadowy Foreign Intelligence Surve1illance Act Court, after the NSA identifies a specific person or group of people suspected of terror ties.
US President Barak Obama said, "For the past eighteen months, I have called for reforming that better safeguard the privacy and civil liberties of the American people while ensuring our national security officials retain tools important to keeping Americans safe. That is why, today, I welcome the Senate's passage of the USA Freedom Act, which I will sign when it reaches my desk".
