Senate Passes Major NSA Reform Bill

After weeks of tense standoffs marked by the lapse of parts of the Patriot Act, the Senate easily passed comprehensive surveillance reform, ending a chapter of high-stakes brinkmanship on Capitol Hill that eventually concluded with lawmakers taking their first significant step away from the post-9/11 national security policy that has come to define two presidencies. By an overwhelming margin, lawmakers approved 67-32 the House-passed USA Freedom Act, which would restore the three provisions of the Patriot Act that expired on June 1, but usher in a bevy of changes designed to better protect privacy and increase transparency of the government's surveillance operations. It will also transition toward an effective end to the National Security Agency's bulk collection of US call data. The measure will now be sent to President Barack Obama, who is expected to swiftly sign it into law.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) failed in the end to convince his caucus to support him on a last-ditch effort to eke out even a small victory in a contentions, months-long battle over government spying that has left a bruise on his young tenure at the helm of the upper chamber. The Senate earlier rejected a host of amendments offered by Majority Leader McConnell that were intended to weaken the legislation. Most notably, the bill would end the NSA's once-secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act to justify its bulk collection of US call metadata, the first and most controversial of the programs exposed by NSA-whistleblower Edward Snowden. In lieu of that mass-surveillance regime, the Freedom Act calls for a transition within 6 months to a system where phone companies provide records to government spies on an as-needed, more-targeted basis after judicial approval is obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.