No amendments allowed on NSA reform bill

House lawmakers won’t allow amendments on a surveillance reform bill hitting the chamber floor this week.

The House Rules Committee voted 8-3 along party lines to prohibit amendments on the USA Freedom Act, which would end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records and extend parts of the Patriot Act for four years. Despite efforts from both sides of the aisle to expand the scope of the legislation, Republican leaders of the Rules Committee closed the rule on the bill, seemingly out of fear that amendments would cause the Obama Administration to change course and oppose the bill.