NSA Contractors Are Literally Paying Off the Senators in Charge Of Keeping Them in Check

After passing through the Senate's Intelligence Committee, the so-called "FISA Improvements Act" is poised to actually do the complete opposite of what its title implies. Instead of being an improvement to the bill that allows the NSA to spy on American citizens, the bill advocates the very unacceptable practices that threaten the privacy rights of American. Even worse, it weakens one of the few effective and powerful checks to the abuse of such programs, diminishing the accountability of government to their people.

Indeed, after reading a little of the bill myself, it became clear that while the bill doesn't allow the content of communications may not be collected (which was supposedly the case before), it still allows the NSA to continue collecting the related metadata, which was the very reason why the programs were controversial in the first place.

To recap: the FISA Improvements Act enables the NSA to continue spying on Americans and foreign allies, encourages greater opacity, and grants oversight to a committee that has a vested interest in supporting the groups that make profits off of the unconstitutional infringements of your rights. It's outrageous for anyone to consider the FISA Improvements Act as an actual improvement of American privacy rights, because the only "improvement" in the bill is for Feinstein's donors. If you oppose the NSA's blatant violations of your privacy, take the issue to your senator and get him or her to support a bill that weakens the government's authority to invade your privacy, like the USA Freedom Act.