The Failed NSA Reform Bill Was a Sham Anyway

[Commentary] The USA Freedom Act failed to advance by a vote of 58 to 42. But a look at some of comments made by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) during the debate over the bill reveal that protecting Americans' privacy may not have been the only reason she supported the bill.

The bill would have shifted control of Americans' phone records from the National Security Agency (NSA) to telecom companies. The government has repeatedly told courts that under Section 215, the NSA can only ask telecoms for business records they already hold. Yet Feinstein seems to have revealed, perhaps unintentionally, that under the new law the telecom companies would be willing to hold records at least an extra six months just so the government could presumably spy on their customers, if necessary. And to keep the records available under the law, the companies would claim they were keeping the records for business reasons. By doing this orally, no records could be obtained under discovery in a customer lawsuit or could be leaked by an NSA whistleblower like Edward Snowden. The telecoms could claim that they are not agents of the nation's spies, even after they seem to have agreed to a handshake deal making them into just that.