URGENT: NSA surveillance on track to be extended and expanded this week.

On May 7th, 2015, the Second District Court of Appeals
ruled that the NSA’s bulk collection of phone call data using Section 215 of the Patriot
Act, as revealed by Edward Snowden,

is illegal.

This decision, if upheld, would end the NSA’s capability
to suck up bulk phone call data.

Now Congress is trying to pass a bill—
the Orwellian “USA Freedom Act”—that would give this power back to the NSA through
new legal loopholes while appearing on the surface to reign-in the NSA.

The bill is getting voted on this week.
Don’t be fooled. It is designed to appease the public while cementing
the government’s surveillance authority for years to come.

USA Freedom Act doesn’t just fail to reform mass surveillance; it extends and expands it.

• 
  Extends Section 215 of the Patriot Act until 2019 while modernizing
  it so it can suck up more information on the devices we use most commonly.
• Expand the type of information the government can access.
  The bill expands
  call data from landlines to include VoIP calls and video chats, and likely will allow
  the government to access all data related to smartphone activity.
• Claims to end bulk collection, but would allow the government to continue collecting huge amounts of data
  by using broad search terms to target big portions of the population and then conducting surveillance on
  anyone who is “connected” to those targets.
• Provides legal immunity
  to companies that violate privacy laws and
  
  pays them to participate in handing over data to the government.
• Creates broad
  
  “emergency” powers for the government to collect all kinds
  of personal data without prior court approval. The government could use
  this authority to suck up and retain massive amounts of data.
• Allows the FBI to access data collected for counterterrorism investigations
  and use it for investigations outside of counterterrorism cases. The FBI
  can then set up
  permanent gag orders to prevent public oversight into their use of this data.
• Creates a new public advocate at the FISA court but
  
  lets the government block the advocate from seeing any and all information
  they choose to keep secret from them.
• Takes wind out of the sails of real reform by appearing to have addressed
  mass surveillance (without actually doing anything to fundamentally alter
  mass surveillance).

Click here to tell Congress to sunset the PATRIOT Act. 

Read more about Congress’ fake reform bill: www.usafreedom.fail