NSA reform bill silent on internet spying
The Senate may this week vote on the National Security Agency reforming USA Freedom Act. Although the bill makes major changes to who the government may gather information on while also...
By: RT America
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NSA reform bill silent on internet spying - Video
WASHINGTON The Senate on Tuesday blocked a bill to end bulk collection of Americans' phone records by the National Security Agency, dealing a blow to President Barack Obama's primary proposal to rein in domestic surveillance.
The 58-42 vote was two short of the 60 needed to proceed with debate under Senate procedural rules. Voting was largely along party lines, with most Democrats supporting the bill and most Republicans voting against it. The Republican-controlled House had previously passed its ownNSAbill.
The legislation would have ended theNSA'scollection of domestic calling records, instead requiring the agency to obtain a court order each time it wanted to analyze the records in terrorism cases, and query records held by the telephone companies. In many cases the companies store the records for 18 months.
The revelation that the spying agency had been collecting and storing domestic phone records since shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was among the most significant by Edward Snowden, a former agency network administrator who turned over secretNSAdocuments to journalists. The agency collects only so-called metadata numbers called, not names and not the content of conversations. But the specter of the intelligence agency holding domestic calling records was deeply disquieting to many Americans.
The bill had drawn support from technology companies and civil liberties activists. Its failure means there has been little in the way of policy changes as a result of Snowden's disclosures.
Pressured to act, Obama in January proposed curbing theNSA's authority and the House in May passed a bill to do so. While the measure was pending, theNSAcontinued to collect American landline calling records, though the program does not cover most mobile phone records.
The law authorizing the bulk collection, a provision of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act, will expire at the end of 2015. That means Congress would have to pass legislation re-authorizing the program for it to continue.
For that reason, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, abandoned her previous opposition to the bill. "If we do not pass the bill, we will lose this program," Feinstein said on the Senate floor.
"This bill increases trust and confidence and credibility of our intelligence system," said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
But Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, called the bill "totally flawed" and said theNSAneeds the ability to sift through domestic calling records and hold the records. "We have under surveillance any number of Americans who are committed to jihad," Chambliss said.
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Senate Republicans block bill: NSA will continue monitoring your calls
Senate lawmakers working to reform NSA surveillance were struck a fatal blow tonight when a critical bill that would have curbed some of the spy agencys controversial activity failed to obtain enough votes.
In one of their last acts before the year sunsets, pro-reform Senators attempted to advance the USA FREEDOM Act but failed by just two votes to obtain the 60 votes needed to move the bill forward.
Democrats, who maintain the majority in the Senate, were eager to push the bill through during the end-of-year session before Republicans assume the majority position next year. Civil liberties groups, which support reforms currently laid out in the bill, considered tonights vote the last-gasp chance for the bill to move forward before some of its staunchest supporters hand over seats lost in the November elections.
The bill would have put an end to the governments controversial bulk collection of phone records from U.S. telecomsa program first uncovered by USA Today in 2006 but re-exposed in 2013 in leaks by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The bill would instead have kept records in the hands of telecoms and forced the NSA to obtain court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to gain access to them. It would also have required the agency to use specific search terms to narrow its access to only relevant records.
Additionally, the bill would have allowed service providers more transparency in disclosing to the public the number and types of requests they receive from the government for customer data. The government in turn would have had to be more transparent about the number of Americans caught up in its data searches. The NSA has said in the past that it has no idea how many Americans are caught up in national security collection efforts that target foreign suspects.
But lawmakers unhappy with the bill feared letting it get even that far, saying the USA FREEDOM Act would handicap the NSA and allow terrorist groups to prosper. Former NSA and CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey called it the kind of NSA Reform That Only ISIS Could Love, referring to the militant group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that has terrorized parts of the Middle East.
The White House, however, supported the bill, saying it balanced the need for surveillance while still preserving the constitutional protections of Americans. Attorney General Eric Holder and even the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper both have expressed support for it.
The bulk-records collection program still faces problems next summer when Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act are scheduled to expire. The government has used Section 215 to authorize collection of the records, and reformers in the Senate and House have vowed to fight re-authorization of this and other sections of the Act next year and let them expire. They had hoped, however, in passing USA FREEDOM Act, to put an end to some of those powers now.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D California), a supporter of the bulk-records collection program, initially opposed the USA FREEDOM Act but changed her mind out of fear that if the Senate didnt pass this bill allowing a revised version of collection program to continue the program was at risk of being cancelled entirely next year if Section 215 is allowed to expire next year. She viewed the compromise offered under the USA FREEDOM Act preferable to the alternative.
I do not want to end the program, she told her fellow lawmakers today. Im prepared to make the compromise, which is that the metadata will be kept by the telecoms.
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Critical NSA Reform Bill Fails in the Senate
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate on Tuesday narrowly defeated a bill designed to overhaul the National Security Agency by halting the collection of phone records of Americans who are not suspected of a crime.
The bill was two votes shy of getting the 60 it needed to pass the USA Freedom Act.
Minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., supported the defeat of the bill.
"This is the worst possible time to be tying our hands behind our backs," he said prior to the Tuesday vote.
Under the potential legislation, the NSA would not have been able to collect phone records of Americans not suspected of a crime. Instead, phone companies would hold on to the records only as long as they currently do under the normal course of business.
The USA Freedom Act isn't likely to pass the next time Congress convenes now that Republicans have control of both houses. It is likely to come up for debate though, as part of discussions about parts of the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law, which are set to expire in June.
The NSA came under fire in 2013 after former CIA worker Edward Snowden leaked classified information about the agency's widespread practice of collecting phone records.
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NSA reform bill dies in the Senate
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Washington (CNN) -- Republican opponents of White House-backed legislation that would rein in NSA surveillance programs narrowly blocked the Senate from taking up the bill Tuesday after warning it could help terrorists escape detection.
On a tally of 58 to 42, a procedural vote failed to get the supermajority 60 votes it needed to advance.
Supporters of the USA Freedom Act, a rare mix of liberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans, hoped public outrage over the secret mass collection of phone and Internet records -- revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden -- would lead to passage of the reforms. But many opponents argued the changes would hamper the National Security Agency's ability to track nimble and elusive terrorists.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell led the charge against the bill, saying the new rules would prevent the United States from capturing the terrorists who killed Peter Kassig, a U.S. citizen doing aid work in Syria. Kassig was executed over the weekend.
"Many of these fighters are familiar with America's intelligence capabilities, and many are savvy with communications. These are terrorists who know how to use encryption, and they how to change devices quickly," he said. "This is the worst time to be tying our hands behind our backs."
"It basically takes us back to a pre-9/11 lack of capacity to identify terrorists making telephone calls in the United States, said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican. "I think that sort of unilateral disarmament would be bad for the country."
McConnell also argued the measure should be debated and voted on in the new Congress next year, not by lawmakers in a lame duck session who are leaving Washington.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the bill's principal author, disputed the critics saying that while it puts checks on the NSA's powerful capabilities, it "does so responsibly."
"The bill contains key reforms to safeguard Americans' privacy by prohibiting the indiscriminate collection of their data. It also provides for greater accountability and transparency of the government's surveillance programs," he said. "The bill also ensures that the intelligence community has the tools it needs to keep our country safe."
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Senate blocks NSA surveillance curb