Domestic Spies

“Powerful House members are proposing sweeping reforms to U.S. surveillance law that puts them on a collision course with legislation in the Senate that favors domestic spying,” reports Wired. The laws, which were made under the Patriotic Act which was formed in haste after the 2001 terror attacks, are set to expire at the end of this year. “As currently written, National Security Laws can be used to obtain the records of somebody not suspected of a crime. It’s a suspicionless standard. Under the proposal they must relate to an agent of a foreign power, of somebody working for a foreign government or foreign terror organization,” privacy lawyer Kevin Bankston told Wired. “That ensures that there is a particularized suspicion rather than allowing them to go on a fishing expedition.”