Senate Falls 1 Vote Short of Giving FBI Access to Browser Histories Without Court Order

In the constantly evolving world of technology, privacy has become an incredibly important topic.

With the evolution of the internet, social media, and advancements in technological hardware, it’s easier than ever to obtain information about individual human beings — especially when you have access to their private digital files.

Thanks to terror attacks, growing civil unrest, and other actions that have left United States citizens feeling as though their safety is at risk, many people have become desperate to find an answer to this problem.

In recent years, the federal government has been taking advantage of this fear in an attempt to take the freedoms away from the American people. By convincing society that the only way to keep them safe is by snooping through all of their personal information in order to potentially obtain evidence that could prevent terror attacks, government agencies have slowly begun convincing people to become comfortable with this.

Thankfully for the rest of us, the United States Senate recently blocked an amendment that would have allowed the FBI to gain access to private browser histories without a court order. The Blaze reports, “The amendment that failed Wednesday also would have made permanent the “lone wolf” provision in last year’s USA Freedom Act that allows the surveillance of non-U.S. citizens in the United States who may be plotting to attack Americans but do not have direct connections to foreign terrorist groups.”

Horrifically, the Senate was only one vote away from failing. We came dangerously close to having virtually zero digital privacy, and it looks like that could become the case in the very near future.

Considering the kinds of private dealings that go on via the internet, it’s beyond alarming to know that government spying is becoming more and more acceptable. Because they’re scared, many otherwise logical United States citizens seem to have begun contemplating the idea of allowing the government to see everything on their computers. This is unsettling, to say the least.

Freedom-loving Americans need to stand up to these bullies and tell them that we’re not going to roll over. We’re not going to let them scare us into giving up our liberties.

Sources:

U.S. News & World Report

The Blaze