Two events worth noting took place this week on Capitol Hill. First, Representatives Mark Pocan (D-Wisc) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) reintroduced the Surveillance State Repeal Act (HR 1466). This bill would completely roll back all provisions of the Patriot Act and abolish the NSA’s right to engage in the mass surveillance of Americans that it has maintained in the 14 years since 9/11.

The SSRA is refreshingly straightforward. In addition to repealing the Patriot Act, it mandates the destruction of “any information collected under the USA PATRIOT Act…and the amendments made by such Act, as in effect the day before the date of the enactment of this Act, concerning a United States person that is not related to an investigation that is actively ongoing on such date.”

It further repeals the FISA amendments of 2008 — a critical step, since programs like PRISM and other data collection activities were actually authorized under this statute. This is the law that gave companies like AT&T retroactive immunity from spying on Americans, and made it a crime for individual states to investigate or prosecute the telecoms for this behavior. The new bill would also increase the number of judges serving on the FISA courts, and mandate that:

Read the Full Article: Source – Extreme Tech
http://www.extremetech.com/internet/201957-congress-considers-patriot-act-repeal-as-fcc-commissioner-moves-to-block-net-neutrality

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