The so-called Freedom Act is the successor to the Patriot Act’s specific provisions on domestic surveillance, and the main change it brings is that telecommunications providers, not the government, will store customers’ data instead. Critics have decried the Freedom Act as not doing enough to abide by the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees Americans freedom from unlawful searches and seizures. Snowden himself commemorated it for being a step in the right direction, but expressed dissatisfaction that it didn’t go far enough in protecting Americans’ privacy.
Seen by some as a controversial and divisive figure, Snowden, nevertheless, was the one who made the world aware of the NSA’s controversial domestic spying programs, and the Freedom Act wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for his courageous whistleblowing.
Boris Volkhonsky, Head of the Asian Desk, Russian Institute for Strategic Studies(studio guest), Brandon Turbeville, American journalist and geopolitical analyst and Raymond McGovern, Former CIA analyst, commented on the issue.
