Section 215 has expired. At least for now.
The law that the NSA used to authorize its collection of vast amounts of information about the telephone calls of ordinary Americans is no more. Even though its likely temporary, its a good thing and we should pause to celebrate a little. The calls and emails Congress received from people across the country and across the political spectrum changed the debate.
The Senate let three provisions of the Patriot Act expire: Section 215, the section the government uses to collect phone and other business records in bulk, the "Lone Wolf provision," and the "roving wiretap" provision. Section 215 nowat least temporarilyreverts to its pre-Patriot Act form, which doesnt permit any collection of financial or communications records, and requires the Government to provide specific and articulable facts supporting a reason to believe that the target is an agent of a foreign power.
This is a good thing. And of course, the government still has plenty of tools to investigate national security cases.
All indications are that this lapse will be temporary and that the Senate will soon pass the USA FREEDOM Act, which has small but important improvements over the now-lapsed section 215 and important additional transparency to the secret FISA court. USA Freedom passed the House with overwhelming support. EFF is neutral on USA Freedomwe think that Congress can do much better and should, but were still now in a much better place than weve been since the 1970s with regard to Congressional action reining in the NSA.
Senate rules allow a final vote, which only needs a simple majority of 51, to occur early Tuesday morning.
