Senate approves sweeping reforms to NSA spying programs

Story by The Hill
Written by Julian Hattem

The Senate on Tuesday sent legislation reforming the nation’s surveillance laws to President Obama’s desk — days after a stalemate caused the National Security Agency’s powers to lapse.

The 67-32 vote for the USA Freedom Act came more than 36 hours after three parts of the Patriot Act expired, forcing the NSA to wind down its bulk collection of U.S. phone data.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suffered a political blow during the bruising fight over the legislation. He and other hawkish Republican Senators opposed the bill even after the House approved it in a broad, bipartisan vote.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) lambasted McConnell for the lapse in Patriot Act provisions, arguing it would not have happened if the GOP leader hadn't spent so much time on trade legislation in the previous month.

Adding further insult to McConnell’s injury, all three of the amendments to the legislation he supported died on Tuesday.

McConnell was also thwarted by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a Presidential candidate and his erstwhile ally.

Paul blocked several efforts by McConnell to extend the existing authority for the NSA powers before the Memorial Day recess, which all but ensured a lapse in the authority. Paul has made opposing the NSA a central part of his Presidential campaign, but his efforts over the last few weeks clearly irritated many of his Senate colleagues.

Passage of the law is a significant victory for critics of the NSA, as for the first time since that post-9/11 National Security law was passed, Congress voted to affirmatively rein in the nation’s surveillance powers.

Fittingly, passage of the legislation — which would end the National Security Agency’s (NSA) controversial collection of bulk records about Americans’ phone calls — came almost exactly two years to the day that government leaker Edward Snowden first revealed the existence of the program to the world.

“It’s an historic moment,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) — one of the authors of the bill — said immediately after the vote. “It’s the first major overhaul in government surveillance laws in decades and add significant privacy protections for the American people.”

Once President Obama signs the bill — which is likely to be quickly — three parts of the Patriot Act that expired at midnight on Sunday would go back online, bringing with them authorities that the government says are critical to protecting the nation.

The legislation will end the NSA’s collection of phone “Metadata” — which include the phone numbers involved in a call as well as the time a phone call occurred and the length of the call. The NSA program does not collect the actual content of people’s conversations.

“Nobody’s civil liberties are being violated here,” McConnell insisted moments before the vote.

The bill will also limit other types of data collection, as well as add new transparency measures and place a new expert panel on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees intelligence activities but currently only hears the government’s side of an argument.

The House passed the legislation 338-88 last month, which many saw as a ringing endorsement of its reforms.

The bill hit a series of snags in the Senate, however.

After lawmakers in the upper chamber initially blocked it and a short-term measure offered by McConnell, the Senate was forced to return for a rare Sunday evening vote, mere hours before the spying powers lapsed. But McConnell was outplayed by Paul — a candidate for president — who forced the temporary lapse.

In recent days, McConnell and Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) had made a last ditch attempt to reform the bill over the heated objections of lawmakers in the House and the White House.

“There are a number of us who feel very strongly that this is a significant weakening of the tools that were put in place in the wake of 9/11 to protect the country,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday.

Later, on the Senate floor, McConnell characterized the White House-backed bill as part of a broader tendency by the Obama administration to sacrifice America’s National Security edge.

“This bill is a part of a pattern, going back to the time the President took office, to pull back,” he said, equating it to his attempt to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and the military draw down from Afghanistan.

Critics said that the three amendments would have significantly watered down the bill. The measures would have reduced the powers of a new expert panel on the secretive federal court overseeing intelligence programs, given the NSA more time to end its phone records program and imposed new requirements for telephone companies.