WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The lapse of legal authority for mass surveillance in the USA Patriot Act is a symbolic blow to the US government’s justification for such activities, a major US-based human rights organization said on Monday.
“This was a symbolic repudiation of the claim that ‘national security’ justifies giving the government an indefinite license to commit systematic rights violations,” Amnesty International USA Security and Human Rights Program Director Naureen Shah said in a statement on Monday.
On Sunday at midnight, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which the US government took as the legal basis to justify its mass surveillance programs, lapsed.
Shah argued that the new reforms “likely to pass in the USA Freedom Act are a significant change.” However, she added, they “do not address global surveillance, including the need to protect the privacy of non-US citizens from mass surveillance.”
Shah noted that even the temporary lapse of the power marked “the first time since the September 11 [terrorist] attacks, Congress let a significant legal authority for surveillance lapse as Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act expired.”
The law’s sunset is at least temporary and the Senate is poised to vote on surveillance reforms in the USA Freedom Act later this week.
Amnesty International is a New York City-based human rights organization that claims to promote human rights and freedoms around the world.
