NSA whistleblower on the "Freedom [sic] Act"

J Kirk Wiebe is a retired National Security Agency whistleblower who worked at the agency for 36 years. 

J Kirk Wiebe, Institute for Public Accuracy -  The tragedy surrounding the current discussion of the USA Freedom Act lies in the fact that the government — including the legislative and executive branches of government, aided and abetted by an unchallenged FISA Court, is working in collusion to mislead the American public about the ability of the legislation to truly do what most Americans want — a constitutional process that a) actually catches bad guys, and b) respects and enforces privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment. Both are ‘do-able’ from a technology perspective and there is no balance — we can have both. 

The truth is that USA Freedom does not cover all NSA authorities to collect information. As long as NSA enjoys collection authorities to do bulk collection under Executive Order 12333, together with no constraints on Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the USA Freedom Act results in few net changes in the government’s ability to invade privacy as it deems necessary, bulk or otherwise. In short, the USA Freedom Act alone does fundamentally very little in terms of significantly constraining the ability of the National Security Agency to perform bulk collection of data about anyone, U.S. citizen or otherwise. We need comprehensive surveillance reform.

There is one more important aspect of the discussion — USA Freedom does absolutely nothing to enhance legislative or judicial oversight over the executive branch’s use of NSA’s vast intelligence production apparatus. Lots of ‘trust,’ but no ‘verify,’ which is what created the current constitutional crisis beginning with the events of Sept. 11, 2001.