House Defeats Effort to Rein In NSA Data Gathering

A deeply divided House defeated legislation that would have blocked the National Security Agency from collecting vast amounts of phone records, handing the Obama Administration a hard-fought victory in the first Congressional showdown over the NSA’s surveillance activities since Edward J. Snowden’s security breaches last month. The 205-to-217 vote was far closer than expected and came after a brief but impassioned debate over citizens’ right to privacy and the steps the government must take to protect national security.

It was a rare instance in which a classified intelligence program was openly discussed on the House floor, and disagreements over the program led to some unusual coalitions. Conservative Republicans leery of what they see as Obama Administration abuses of power teamed up with liberal Democrats long opposed to intrusive intelligence programs. The Obama Administration made common cause with the House Republican leadership to try to block it. House members pressing to rein in the NSA vowed afterward that the outrage unleashed by Snowden’s disclosures would eventually put a brake on the agency’s activities. Rep Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), a longtime critic of post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism efforts, said lawmakers would keep coming back with legislation to curtail the dragnets for “metadata,” whether through phone records or Internet surveillance.