Today, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the USA Freedom Act, a bill passed by the House last month that ends the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records. The bill now heads to President Obama for his signature. Elizabeth Goitein and Faiza Patel, co-directors of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, are available for your coverage.
“For the first time since 9/11, Congress has placed significant limits on the government’s ability to spy on Americans,” said Elizabeth Goitein. “Once signed into law, the USA Freedom Act will end the NSA’s indiscriminate collection of Americans’ phone records. If faithfully implemented, it will also narrow the collection of other types of business records under Section 215 and other foreign intelligence authorities. It will introduce a measure of transparency into FISA Court decisions and give the court’s judges the option of conducting more balanced proceedings.”
“These reforms are important first steps, but that does not mean Congress can wash its hands of these issues and move on,” Goitein added. “Congress must vigilantly monitor the executive branch’s implementation of this law to ensure that the law’s intent is respected. Congress also must address the question of what happens to all the information about innocent Americans that will continue to be collected ‘incidentally’ under these and other authorities. Most crucially, Congress must turn to the mass surveillance programs not touched by the USA Freedom Act, including the collection of international calls and e-mails under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act and Executive Order 12333.”
“This is the first time since 9/11 that Congress has agreed to roll back the extraordinary authorities that were enacted in the wake of the attacks,” said Faiza Patel. “They have responded to their constituents who are deeply troubled by the NSA’s dragnet collection of phone records, a federal appeals court that recently found the program illegal, and various reviews that showed it had minimal counter-terrorism value. But this should not be the end of reform. We already know of many NSA programs that affect Americans’ privacy as much as Section 215 of the Patriot Act and there are undoubtedly others that have not yet come to light. Congress must move quickly and seriously to review and reform those as well.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.