Rebecca Shabad

The House on narrowly passed a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package crafted by Democrats. The bill passed by a vote of 208-199 and now heads to the Senate. One Republican backed the bill, while 14 Democrats voted against it. The House also passed a resolution to temporarily change House rules to allow for proxy voting and remote committee work during the pandemic, an unprecedented shift to how the chamber operates. It passed mostly along party lines.

Sen Al Franken (D-MN) warned the new AT&T merger with DirecTV will likely hurt consumers. “This is going exactly in the wrong direction,” Sen Franken said on CNN’s “New Day.”

“The fewer players there are in this space, I believe it’s worse for consumers. My constituents in Minnesota will be paying more for cable.”

Sen Franken has also opposed the Comcast merger with Time Warner Cable announced in February. During congressional hearings about that deal, Sen Franken dismissed the companies' arguments that the deal would create more competition.

“No, they’re just buying each other,” Sen Franken said. “This is a bad trend.”

National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers said he wants to promote greater transparency within the agency tainted by releases of classified documents by Edward Snowden.

He said he intends to be more candid with the public about the NSA’s activities.

"The idea of accountability and responsibility is very important to me," he said. "We must ensure that we do not in any way abuse this capability.” He also defended the NSA’s metadata surveillance program, saying it needed better explanation but not necessarily an overhaul.

"It is by design that I have tried to start a series of engagements with a broader and perhaps more different groups than we have traditionally done," he added. “The dialogue to date that we have had for much of the last nine months or so from my perspective, I wish was a little bit broader, had a little more context to it, and was a little bit more balanced."

An updated privacy policy for WhiteHouse.gov, its mobile apps and social media sites explains how the government can collect user data if it’s in the open domain.

“Information you choose to share with the White House (directly and via third party sites) may be treated as public information," the new policy says, according to the Associated Press.

The policy, however, doesn’t impose any significant changes. Instead, it aims to make it easier for online visitors to the White House to understand how their visits are documented.

Information about how long and when people visit the site is recorded, for instance, as is the amount of data transmitted from WhiteHouse.gov to their computers. Emails that are opened, forwarded or printed from the website are also tracked.

Attorney General Eric Holder said he is on track to meet a March 28 deadline for presenting specific reforms to the National Security Agency (NSA).

Attorney General Holder did not say whether a formal recommendation has already been submitted to the White House.

“That review is ongoing. We are in touch with the White House,” Attorney General Holder said. “I've been in touch with the president. We'll meet the deadlines that the president has set. We have meetings that are scheduled,” he said.