Thread: Senate Moves Toward Limiting N.S.A. Bulk Data Collection

Senate Moves Toward Limiting N.S.A. Bulk Data Collection

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and JONATHAN WEISMAN
MAY 31, 2015



Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, after opening a special session on Sunday to extend a national surveillance program, which was set to expire at midnight. Credit Cliff Owen/Associated Press


WASHINGTON — In a rare Sunday night session, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to begin a debate on a bill passed by the House to curtail a national security surveillance program approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But the law that authorized the program was set to expire at midnight in the face of continuing opposition from Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky.

The 77-to-17 vote was a remarkable turnabout — grudgingly approved by the majority leader, SenatorMitch McConnell, a fellow Kentucky Republican — just a week after the Senate narrowly turned the bill away at his behest. Mr. McConnell, in a desperate attempt to keep the surveillance program going, encouraged senators to vote for a bill that he still found deficient.

“I remain determined to working toward the best outcome for the American people possible under the circumstances,” Mr. McConnell said. “This is where we are, colleagues — a House-passed bill with some serious flaws, and an inability to get a short-term extend to improve the House bill.”

Mr. Paul, whom Mr. McConnell has endorsed as a presidential candidate, made it clear that he would use his procedural weapon — the words “I object” — to ensure that provisions of the law that the government has been using to sweep up vast amounts of telephone data go away, at least temporarily. He said he would decline to let Mr. McConnell move to a rapid passage of the bill, which requires the consent of every senator, before midnight.

Even as senators were trickling into the Capitol from the airport, Mr. McConnell attempted to extend some aspects of the law as senators worked out a new bill. He asked colleagues to consider a two-week continuation of the federal authority to track a “lone wolf” terrorism suspect not connected to a state sponsor and to conduct “roving” surveillance of a suspect, rather than of a phone number alone, to combat terrorists who frequently discard cellphones — while Congress continued to negotiate a new bill.



But Mr. Paul objected, and Mr. McConnell lashed out from the Senate floor at what he called “a campaign of demagoguery and disinformation” about the program.

Mr. McConnell then moved to a second option, a procedural move to take up the bill passed by the House, which he said the Senate would amend this week.

The bill in question, passed by the House overwhelmingly in May, would overhaul the Patriot Act and curtail the bulk collection of phone records, a program that was exposed by Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency. Under the provisions of the House bill, sweeps that had operated under the guise of so-called national security letters issued by the F.B.I. would end. The data would instead be stored by the phone companies and could be retrieved by intelligence agencies only after approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us...eedom-act.html

UPDATED U.S. Senate fails to extend controversial surveillance program

Senator Rand Paul forces temporary end to bulk collection of Americans' telephone records

The Associated Press Posted: May 31, 2015 5:13 PM ET Last Updated: May 31, 2015 8:03 PM ET


Senator Rand Paul, seen speaking in April, has promised to force the expiration of a surveillance program that allows the mass collection of Americans' telephone records. (Associated Press file photo)

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The National Security Agency will lose its authority at midnight to collect Americans' phone records in bulk after an extraordinary Sunday afternoon Senate session failed to produce an 11th-hour deal to extend the fiercely contested program.

Intelligence officials warned that the outcome amounts to a win for terrorists. But civil liberties groups applauded the demise, at least temporarily, of the once-secret post-Sept. 11 program made public by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which critics say is an unconstitutional intrusion into Americans' privacy.

The program is all but certain to be revived in a matter of days, although it also looks certain to be completely overhauled under House-passed legislation that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reluctantly blessed in an about-face Sunday evening.

• Mass surveillance targeted in lawsuit by ACLU, Wikipedia
• NSA's bulk collection of phone records illegal, appeals court rules
• Why is the U.S. collecting phone data on its citizens?

With most senators opposed to extending current law unchanged, even for a short time, McConnell said the House bill, the Freedom Act that also has the backing of the White House, was the only option left other than letting the program die off entirely. The Senate voted 77-17 to move ahead on the House-passed bill.

However, no final action was expected before Sunday's midnight deadline after McConnell's fellow Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul served notice that he would assert his prerogatives under Senate rules to delay a final vote for several days.

"This is what we fought the revolution over," Paul, a presidential candidate, declared on the Senate floor. "Are we going to so blithely give up our freedom? ... I'm not going to take it anymore."

'I'm not going to take it anymore.'- Senator Rand Paul

Senate rules mean it likely will be the middle of the week before the chamber can vote on whether to pass the Freedom Act, which extends the existing surveillance program for six months while the new system gets up and running.

Still, Paul, a Republican 2016 presidential hopeful who had vigorously opposed the Freedom Act, acknowledged after the procedural vote: "This bill will ultimately pass."

Earlier Sunday, CIA director John Brennan urged senators to quit playing politics on the issue.

Terrorists "are looking for the seams to operate within," Brennan said. "This is something that we can't afford to do right now."

McConnell slammed

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was unsparing in his criticism of McConnell on Sunday, blaming him for the Senate's failure to resolve the issue well ahead of the deadline.

"The majority leader should have seen this coming, everyone else did," Reid said on the floor. "The job of the leader is to have a plan. In this case, it is clear that the majority leader simply didn't have a plan."

House Speaker John Boehner issued a brief but strong statement warning of the impact if the surveillance parts of the Patriot Act expire.

"Al-Qaeda, ISIL [jihadists] and other terrorists around the globe continue to plot attacks on America and our allies. Anyone who is satisfied with letting this critical intelligence capability go dark isn't taking the terrorist threat seriously," said Boehner, who urged the Senate to pass the House bill backed by the White House that would remake the National Security Agency's phone collection program.

Insufficient votes

Even though the House legislation gained McConnell's support, all senators would need to agree to move to a final vote, and Paul is not going along.

Paul cannot hold off a final vote indefinitely, just for a few days. But until the impasse is resolved, the NSA will lose legal authority to collect and search domestic phone records for connections to international terrorists.

Two lesser-known Patriot Act provisions also would lapse: One, so far unused, helps track "lone wolf" terrorism suspects unconnected to a foreign power. The second allows the FBI to conduct roving wiretaps to eavesdrop on suspects who continually discard their cellphones.

The bill, once passed, would keep the programs operating, but shut down the bulk phone collection program over six months and give phone companies the job of maintaining records the government could search.

Civil libertarians dispute the White House's warnings, arguing that the surveillance programs have never been shown to produce major results.

"The sky is not going to fall," American Civil Liberties Union executive director, Anthony Romero, told reporters.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-s-sen...gram-1.3094781

I adore Rand Paul and all those who supported his position to end the Patriot Act. Yippee!!

Great Job, Rand Paul et al, and keep up the good work. Now go after repealing that stupid phony "Bank Secrecy Act", what a joke that is!