An attempt to reauthorize Section 702, the so-called crown jewel of US spy powers, failed for a third time in the House of Representatives after former president Donald Trump criticized the law.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/15183880

Well it wasn’t just Trump loyalists; it was 19 Republicans in the Freedom Caucus (who are indeed Trump loyalists) and almost all the Democrats voting agains bringing the current bill to the floor. Now what?

“Congressional sources tell WIRED they have no idea what the next steps will be.”

Oh.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
    3·
    3 months ago

    Yeah. And it could be both – it could be both a useful tool for law enforcement to wiretap foreign adversaries that are trying to elect Trump or do something similarly awful, and also a convenient loophole if they want to track protest organizations where one of the members sometimes calls his brother who lives in France or whatever. Russia/Trump would only care about the first, and someone who’s chiefly concerned about civil liberties in the US would only really care (or even be aware of, by definition) about the second.