FREEDOM Act Passes, Effectively Kills FreedomBy Brandon Turbeville Unfortunately, however, the passage of the FREEDOM Act is no victory for freedom. In fact, is an insultingly sound nail in freedoms coffin. The bill, which has been promoted and supported by many of the same members of Congress that supported the PATRIOT Act (notably, James Sensenbrenner) now comes on the heels of a 2nd US Circuit Court decision that bulk telecommunications data collection was not authorized by the PATRIOT Act, unconstitutional, and therefore an illegal act. To be sure, the FREEDOM Act has been in the works for passage since 2013 when lawmakers began pushing it. At the time, the bill attempted to actually extend the PATRIOT Act provisions through the end of 2017 as well as maintain a number of violations of civil liberties and privacy concerns. The new version of the FREEDOM Act is no better, except perhaps in the language being used to promote it. When the 2nd Circuit Court ruled that the PATRIOT Act did not authorize the bulk collection of data nationwide and that doing so violates the Constitution, it essentially made the actions of the NSA and the rest of the US intelligence apparatus illegal. The FREEDOM Act does nothing to punish or prevent intelligence agencies who have been illegally wiretapping innocent Americans. In fact, it has simply legalized the process. According to Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute, the bill is able to legalize the storage and collection of bulk data by putting the responsibility upon the back of the major telecommunications companies who will be tasked with doing just that storing and retaining all data for future use by intelligence agencies. This data must be turned over to the agencies upon request. It is, essentially, the privatization of mass surveillance. These Telecom giants who will now be in charge of the data collection have worked hand in glove with intelligence agencies for some time. Now the law will require them to do so. Of course, it should be remembered that, at the top levels of many corporations, the surveillance and intelligence apparatus along with the capitalist and governing corporate boards are often one and the same. Daniel McAdams makes four points about how the FREEDOM Act influences the collection of data in the private sphere. He writes, In addition, the bill leaves loopholes in language wide enough you could drive a truck through. For instance, it does not define the term Direct connection, which would allow the NSA to access data on Americans through their smartphones via private providers, which would largely be seen as an expansion of NSA power, despite the fact that limits on power have never really been a concern to the NSA before. While the bill has been presented as the negation of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, used by the Bush and Obama administrations to legally justify bulk data collection, the bill merely makes the telecom companies the first level collators of this information, with intelligence agencies able to request data from them at any time based on keywords (presumably like the myriad of publicly admitted words used for surveillance triggers today). Despite deciding to support the bill, ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer stated that This bill would make only incremental improvements, and at least one provisionthe material-support provisionwould represent a significant step backwards. The disclosures of the last two years make clear that we need wholesale reform. Another organization that supported the bill (but hoped that congress improved it) was the Center for Democracy and Technology who admitted that the so-called limits to the PATRIOT Act provisions were virtually non-existent. It stated, Even more revealing, however, is an article written by Shane Harris of the Daily Beast in the weeks leading up to the passage of the FREEDOM Act. Harris writes, The bill that the House passed yesterday, called the USA Freedom Act, doesnt actually suspend the phone records program. Rather, it requires that phone companies, not the NSA, hold on to the records. The picture painted by the Daily Beast and the individuals commenting on the FREEDOM Act is thus one of the typical Problem-Reaction-Solution variety. But the gains that civil libertarians supposedly made in regards to this bill are virtually nonexistent. The Daily Beast can really only find one to mention and even that has nothing to do with the bill itself. It is merely the fact that millions of Americans now know they have been spied on for the last decade. How that is a win is anyones guess. Julia Sanchez of the CATO Institute, while trying to paint the bill as a level-headed agreement was also forced to admit that it simply gives the NSA greater flexibility. Harris writes, Consider also Representative Justin Amashs summary of the FREEDOM Act. Indeed, the Second Circuit encouraged Congress in reforming Section 215 to make a congressional judgment as to what is reasonable under current circumstances. Taken in concert with the fact that the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has ruled that Americans have no perception of privacy when it comes to records being held by a third party, one can easily see why the NSA would be high-fiving in the break room of their massive data center. Of course, if Congress was interested in reigning in the massive dragnet of data being taken illegally by the NSA, they would have simply allowed the expiring sections of the PATRIOT Act to do just that expire. This would have been the most simple and common sense action to take since the PATRIOT Act section 215 is itself unconstitutional. Instead, the American people are subjected to the FREEDOM Act, written by the NSA FOR the NSA and all the propaganda of civil liberties victories and weakness in the face of terror that comes with it. Yet the unfortunate truth is that, even if the FREEDOM Act was never passed and relevant sections of the PATRIOT Act were allowed to expire, the power of the NSA would scarcely be diminished. Illegal government spying has taken place with every new advent of technology and communications since even long before 9/11. With the knowledge that programs such as Sentient World Simulation is in existence as well as the ability to record and store all the information on one individual for less than the cost of a mobile home, Americans would be nave to think that a change on paper would change the surveillance state in which they live. While this is not to downplay the importance of codifying privacy and upholding the Bill of Rights legally and on paper, it is clear that it will take more than Congress to get it done. Regardless, the FREEDOM Act is anything but freedom much like the PATRIOT Act was anything but patriotic. The FREEDOM Act is merely another nail in the coffin of civil liberties and a comical funeral procession over the corpse of privacy. Recently from Brandon Turbeville: Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelors Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies,Five Sense Solutionsand Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, and The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria.Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbevilles podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com. 