The Ways USA Freedom Act Fails

3 Ways USA Freedom Act Fails to Stop FBI Spying on Americans

by TRNN

June 2, 2015

As the Senate looks to pass a bipartisan "reformed" Patriot Act, TRNN's Jessica Desvarieux examines how this bill will continue FBI's mass collection of private information of Americans who are under no suspicion of crime.

If you've made a phone call, sent a text or an email, the Federal Bureau of Investigation could be monitoring your online activities without a warrant. Critics of the Patriot Act have pointed out this fact, and now Congress is doing something about it. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate is likely to pass a bill called the US Freedom Act, which advocates say will reform the Patriot Act of 2001, and some of its surveillance provisions.The House of Representatives already passed their version of the USA Freedom Act last month, which includes a change that makes sure the government can no longer hold on to phone records but instead it will remain in the hands of phone providers that can be compelled to turn over those records to the government. President Obama said in his weekly address that he's ready to sign the bill into law.

Jessica Desvarieux is a multimedia journalist who serves as the Capitol Hill correspondent for the Real News Network. Most recently, Jessica worked as a producer for the ABC Sunday morning program, This Week with Christianne Amanpour. Before moving to Washington DC, Jessica served as the Haiti corespondent for TIME Magazine and TIME.com. Previously, she was as an on-air reporter for New York tri-state cable outlet Regional News Network, where she worked before the 2010 earthquake struck her native country of Haiti. From March 2008 - September 2009, she lived in Egypt, where her work appeared in various media outlets like the Associated Press, Voice of America, and the International Herald Tribune - Daily News Egypt. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a Master of Science degree in journalism. She is proficient in French, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and has a working knowledge of Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. Follow her @Jessica_Reports.