Senators at odds over collecting phone data
Republicans scramble to renew the NSA surveillance program. Democrats seek limits.
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans have launched the opening salvo in a battle over government surveillance powers, introducing a bill to preserve the National Security Agency’s authority to store and search domestic telephone records.
Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden sparked a public furor in 2013 when he leaked documents showing that the spy agency was secretly collecting telephone metadata — records showing phone numbers and the time, date and duration of calls — for use in terrorism investigations.
Despite President Obama’s vows to limit the program, and concern by civil liberties groups and some on Capitol Hill that it goes too far in invading Americans’ privacy, the NSA archiving of U.S. phone records has continued essentially unchanged.
A report released Wednesday by the director of national intelligence indicates that the records were checked for 227 “known or presumed” Americans last year. That compares with 248 in 2013, the first year such figures were released.
Legal authority for the program, contained in Section 215 of the Patriot Act, is set to expire June 1. That has set off a race between lawmakers who want to preserve the government’s surveillance powers and those who want to rein them in.
In an unusual procedural move, the Republican measure to extend the NSA’s socalled bulk collection of phone records was not considered by any Senate committee. Instead, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), backed by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.), moved about 10 p.m. Tuesday to begin the process of asking the full Senate to reauthorize Section 215 without changes. A vote has not been scheduled.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (DVt.) criticized the late-night maneuver, saying the Republican leadership in the Senate was “trying to quietly pass a straight reauthorization of the bulk collection program that has been proven ineffective and unnecessary.”
Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would normally have considered the legislation, said he would oppose any bill that did not contain meaningful reforms to the collection program.
“This tone-deaf attempt to pave the way for five and a half more years of unchecked surveillance will not succeed,” Leahy said in a statement.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he would consider “some reforms” to the program, but added: “My No. 1 goal of the Patriot Act is to make sure we don’t have another 9/11.... I will not vote for a Patriot Act that is compromised.”
A bill to limit the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone data passed the House last year but failed in the Senate.
Intelligence officials have said the then-secret archives had helped authorities stop at least a dozen terrorist plots. Critics say only one case was discovered as a direct result of a phone record search: an Anaheim cab driver who was sentenced in 2014 for sending money to an Al Qaeda cell in Somalia.
“Given the number of foreign fighters going to Syria, and Al Qaeda having an even freer hand in Yemen, we should think carefully before restricting important intelligence authorities,” Michael Allen, a former chief of staff for the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (DBurbank), said the possibility that the provision would expire June 1 could create enough pressure on opponents to agree to some changes to the program.
“This is the one opportunity we have to use the sunset [clause] as a lever to get some reform done,” Schiff said in an interview.
Despite the move by Senate Republicans to preserve the NSA program intact, House Republicans appeared more willing to hem in the agency’s ability to collect intelligence on Americans.
A bipartisan group in the House is set to introduce legislation that would curtail bulk collection, establish an independent advocate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that helps oversee government spying, and more narrowly define so-called selector terms used by the NSA to define the scope of data requested from U.S. phone companies, among other provisions.