Demand Progress

Tell the Senate: Shut down Section 215!

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    Tell the Senate: Shut down Section 215!

    Petition to the Senate:
    We demand you let Section 215 of the Patriot Act expire!

    For 18 years, the NSA has been spying on the phone records of millions of Americans, and not once have they uncovered anything useful to prevent a terrorist attack.

    Now the NSA is ready end their phone record spying program for good. But Republicans in the Senate, led by Sen. Richard Burr, refuse to let it go.1 Tell the Senate: Stop spying on Americans!

    Senator Burr is clinging to a program called Section 215. It’s a part of the Patriot Act that allowed the NSA to collect bulk phone data on millions of Americans. It’s been a privacy rights nightmare for almost 20 years. The NSA is finally backing away from the program, but Republicans like Sen. Richard Burr won’t budge.

    Section 215 allowed the NSA to collection millions of Americans’ phone records, without a warrant or probable cause of a crime. It’s essentially a massive surveillance dragnet, aimed not at enemies of the United States, but our own citizens.

    This year, Section 215 is set to expire – and, surprisingly, the NSA is on board with ending the phone records collection program. The only people standing in the way are Republicans senators like Sen. Richard Burr.

    Tell the Senate: Shut down Section 215 and stop spying on Americans!

     

    Sources:
    1. Wall Street Journal, “NSA Recommends Dropping Phone-Surveillance Program,” April 24, 2019.