Posted on 06/21/2014 7:34:06 AM PDT by PoloSec
Members vote 293 to 121 to stop NSA performing warrantless searches of data collected under foreign surveillance program
Surveillance reform gained new congressional momentum as the US House of Representatives unexpectedly and overwhelmingly endorsed stripping a major post-9/11 power from the National Security Agency late Thursday night.
By a substantial and bipartisan margin, 293 to 121, representatives moved to ban the NSA from searching warrantlessly through its troves of ostensibly foreign communications content for Americans' data, the so-called "backdoor search" provision revealed in August by the Guardian thanks to leaks from Edward Snowden.
The move barring funds for warrantless searches "using an identifier of a United States person" came as an amendment added by Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, and Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, to the annual defense appropriations bill, considered a must-pass piece of legislation to fund the US military. Also banned is the NSA's ability, disclosed through the Snowden leaks, to secretly insert backdoor access to user data through hardware or communications services.
"I think it's the first time the House has had the opportunity to vote on the 4th Amendment and the NSA as a discrete item. It was an overwhelming vote," Lofgren told the Guardian. She said the vote succeeded despite efforts of what she called "the intel establishment."
It swiftly circumvented a carefully crafted legislative package, backed by the White House and the NSA, presenting President Obama with an uncomfortable choice about vetoing the entire half-trillion dollar spending bill.
That legislative package, known as the USA Freedom Act, had jettisoned a measure to ban backdoor searches in order to move the bill out of committee. Losing the backdoor-search prohibition prompted, in part, civil libertarian groups to abandon their support of the House version of the bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Dear God!
Are they so stupid they think this will hinder the NSA?!
They actually voted on something? Brave Congress. What will they do when the NSA simply ignores them, as do most other agencies and personnel of the soetoro regime?
“Are they so stupid they think this will hinder the NSA?!”
Nah, it’s just to calm the natives.
Will this prevent ‘backdoor searches’ of lost e-mails, especially in the 2010 timeframe?
Too late. The toothpaste has been out of the tube for a LONG time.
Why is the NSA allowed to spy on any of us Americans?
Apparently more Democrats than Republicans voted for it.
Ayes Noes PRES NV
Republican 135 94 — 3
Democratic 158 29 1 11
Independent
TOTALS 293 123 1 14
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2014/roll327.xml
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