Expansive surveillance reform takes backseat to House politics

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Congress is waving the white flag about moving forward with more expansive intelligence reform. As lawmakers stare down the barrel of a deadline to renew or reform the Patriot Act, they have all but assured that more expansive reforms to US intelligence powers won’t be included. It’s not because of the substance of the reforms -- which practically all members of the House Judiciary Committee said they support -- but because they would derail a carefully calibrated deal and are opposed by GOP leaders in the House and Senate.

The House Judiciary Committee killed an amendment to expand the scope of the USA Freedom Act -- which would reform the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records and some other provisions -- by a vote of 9-24. “If there ever was a perfect being the enemy of the good amendment, then this is it,” said Rep Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), a supporter of the idea behind the amendment who ultimately voted against it. “What adoption of this amendment will do is take away all leverage that his committee has relative to reforming the Patriot Act... If this amendment is adopted, you can kiss this bill goodbye,” he added. The amendment from Rep Ted Poe (R-Texas) would block the spy agency from using powers under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act to collect Americans’ Internet communications without a warrant. The NSA has relied on the powers of Section 702 to conduct its “PRISM” and “Upstream” collection programs, which gather data from major Web companies such as Facebook and Google, as well as to tap into the networks that make up the backbone of the Internet. The amendment would also prevent the government from forcing tech companies to include “backdoors” into their products, so that the government could access people’s information. While every committee member who spoke up said they supported the amendment, it ultimately failed because of fear that it would kill the overall bill.


Expansive surveillance reform takes backseat to House politics