Daily Archives: May 23, 2014

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that would limit the National Security Agencys bulk collection of domestic phone records, even as several civil liberties and tech groups withdrew their support after last-minute changes.

The amended version of the USA Freedom Act, approved by a 303-121 vote in the House Thursday, continues to give the NSA authority to collect telephone and other records from large groups of people because of a change in the definition of the search targets allowed, critics said.

Still, backers of the legislation said it will end the NSAs practice of collecting nearly all U.S. telephone records. The bill represents a huge step forward and would require the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to publish its major surveillance opinions, supporters said.

The amended bill, supported by President Barack Obamas administration, is not perfect, many supporters said, but is better than nothing. The amended bill represents a first step, not a final step in congressional efforts reform U.S. surveillance programs, said Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and vocal critic of the NSA phone records program.

The days of the NSA indiscriminately vacuuming up more data than it can store will end with the USA Freedom Act, Sensenbrenner said. In the post-Freedom Act world, we have turned the tables on the NSA and can say to them, we are watching you.

The House bill now heads to the Senate, where it could be further amended. Critics of the House bill said they will fight for stronger privacy protections in the Senate.

Opponents of the bill argued the amended version would allow the NSA to target wide groups of people with its surveillance. The result of the changes is a bill that will not end bulk collection, regretfully, said Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat. Regrettably, we have learned that if we leave any ambiguity in law, the intelligence agencies will run a truck right through that ambiguity.

The House Rules Committee made changes to the USA Freedom Act Tuesday after two other committees had approved an older version backed by several tech and civil liberties groups. After the changes, Facebook, Google, Apple, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups withdrew their support.

One of the major changes to the bill is an expended definition of a specific selection term that the NSA must use to target its searches. The amended version of the bill allows the NSA to target things such as a person, entity, accounts, address, or device, instead of, in the original language, a person, entity, or account.

The words address and device in the new language, as well as the open-ended term such as, makes the new definition incredibly more expansive than previous definitions, the EFF said in a blog post.

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House approves weakened bill to limit NSA bulk collection

This June 6, 2013, file photo shows the sign outside the National Security Agency campus in Fort Meade, Md. A presidential advisory panel has recommended dozens of changes to the government's surveillance programs, including stripping the NSA of its ability to store Americans' telephone records and requiring a court to sign off on the individual searches of phone and Internet data.AP/File

WASHINGTON The House on Thursday passed legislation to end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of American phone records, the first legislative response to the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Although the compromise measure was significantly "watered down," in the words of Democrat Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, it passed by a vote of 303 to 120, with 9 members not voting.

"We must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good," Schakowsky, an intelligence committee member, said in summing up the feelings of many Republicans and Democrats who voted for the measure but wanted tougher provisions. Dropped from the bill was a requirement for an independent public advocate on the secret intelligence court that oversees the NSA.

The USA Freedom Act would codify a proposal made in January by President Barack Obama, who said he wanted to end the NSA's practice of collecting the "to and from" records of nearly every American landline telephone call under a program that searched the data for connections to terrorist plots abroad.

The bill instructs the phone companies to hold the records for 18 months--which they already were doing-- and lets the NSA search them in terrorism investigations in response to a judicial order. The phone program was revealed last year by Snowden, who used his job as a computer network administrator to remove tens of thousands of secret documents from an NSA facility in Hawaii.

The measure now heads to the Senate. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the intelligence committee, has said she is willing to go along with a similar idea.

NSA officials were pleased with the bill because under the existing program, they did not have access to many mobile phone records. Under the new arrangement, they will, officials say.

"I believe this is a workable compromise that protects the core function of a counter terrorism program we know has saved lives around the world," said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the House Intelligence Committee chairman.

Privacy and civil liberties activists denounced the measure, saying it had been "gutted" to win agreement from lawmakers such as Rogers who supported the NSA phone records program.

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House approves bill curbing NSA phone data collection