NSA pulls plug on data collection

Senate to vote on bill that ends program, OKs other spying

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky arrives Monday on Capitol Hill in Washington before debate continued in the Senate on renewing the Patriot Act.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky arrives Monday on Capitol Hill in Washington before debate continued in the Senate on renewing the Patriot Act.

WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency suspended its contentious collection of Americans' phone records as Congress grappled Monday with how to restore expired surveillance laws the government has used to track terrorists and spies.

Aiming for passage this afternoon, the Senate on Monday prepared to make changes to a House bill that would end the collection while preserving other surveillance authorities. But while Congress debated, the law authorizing the collection expired at midnight Sunday.

The NSA had stopped gathering the records from phone companies hours before the deadline. And other post-9/11 surveillance provisions considered more effective than the phone-call collection program also lapsed, leading intelligence officials to warn of critical gaps.

The legislation now before the Senate, known as the USA Freedom Act, would reauthorize the surveillance but would phase out NSA phone records collection over time. It passed the House overwhelmingly and is backed by President Barack Obama.

Sen. Rand Paul, who doesn't believe it goes far enough in restricting the government, objected anew Monday, but he can't stop a vote to end debate scheduled for this morning.

If the bill becomes law over the next few days, the NSA will resume gathering the phone records but only for a transition period of six months in the House version or a year in the Senate version.

If the bill fails amid congressional politics, the collection cannot resume.

The turn of events is a victory for Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who disclosed the phone records collection in 2013.

Still, the current legislation would hardly count as a defeat for the NSA, Snowden's former employer. Agency officials, including former Director Keith Alexander, have long said they had no problem with ending their collection of phone records, as long as they could continue to search the data held by the phone companies, which the legislation allows them to do.

Two independent panels have concluded that the phone records program hasn't helped stop terrorist plots, including the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, which was led by former senior national security officials.

The USA Freedom Act doesn't address the majority of Snowden's revelations, which concern NSA mass surveillance of global Internet traffic.

If the legislation fails and the surveillance provisions expire, that would be a blow to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Besides the phone-records provision, expiration of the USAPATRIOT Act has meant a halt in the FBI's authority to seize targeted phone, hotel and banking records of suspected terrorists and spies; use roving wiretaps; and use tools to search for lone-wolf terrorists not connected to an organization.

Roving wiretaps let investigators track suspected terrorists who change the devices they use to communicate, without having to get a court warrant for each device. During the lapse of authority, the FBI maintained it would be able to continue using roving wiretaps that were already approved but couldn't begin new ones, senior Obama administration officials said Wednesday.

"There are specific tools that our national security professionals have previously used ... that they can as of today no longer use because of the partisan dysfunction in the United States Senate," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday.

Other government surveillance methods under the act are continuing unchanged.

House bill amended

Senators late Sunday advanced the House-passed bill that would extend the three NSA provisions while curbing the bulk-data collection programs.

The bill would require investigators to get a court warrant and go to telecommunications companies to obtain individual phone records.

McConnell and other Republicans said that arrangement hasn't been tested and that their amendments would primarily be aimed at ensuring the government can search records held by the companies in a timely manner.

The amendments proposed by Sen. Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican who heads the intelligence committee, were designed, Burr said, to win quick House approval. One requires the director of national intelligence to certify that the NSA can effectively search records held by the phone companies in terrorism investigations. The certification is nonbinding.

Another would require the phone companies to notify the government if they decide to hold records for less than 18 months.

A third would give the government a year to shift the phone records program, rather than six months in the House bill.

Burr's proposal also would alter a provision allowing independent lawyers to weigh in on decisions by the secret court that oversees spying under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

On Monday afternoon, House backers of the USA Freedom Act denounced the Senate's plan to amend it.

"These amendments only serve to weaken the House-passed bill and postpone timely enactment of legislation that responsibly protects national security while enhancing civil liberty protections," said a statement by Republican Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and three other members.

"The House is not likely to accept the changes proposed by Senator McConnell. Section 215 has already expired. These amendments will likely make that sunset permanent. The Senate must act quickly to pass the USA Freedom Act without amendment."

Earnest said the White House, too, opposes adding any amendments in the Senate to the House-passed bill.

A senior member of the House GOP leadership, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, said the best course would be for the Senate to approve the measure as written. But he did not rule out revisions.

"I don't know what the Senate could do. They said a lot of things," he said.

McConnell, Boehner at odds

Democrats seized on the issue as the latest example of McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner being out of sync, though they hold the majority in both chambers.

Although McConnell and Boehner both support the three U.S. spy programs that expired Monday, they've been at odds over ending the NSA's collection of bulk telephone data.

"Clearly there was no communication between Boehner and McConnell, and they failed to take into account that there were a substantial number of Republicans who disagreed with their leader on this issue," Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the chamber's second-ranking Democrat, said at the Capitol on Sunday.

A similar dynamic played out in February, when a disagreement between House and Senate Republican leaders over whether to attach language blocking Obama's immigration orders almost halted funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

The House surveillance bill fell three votes short of the 60 needed to advance in the Senate on May 23. On Sunday, it advanced 77-17.

The measure wasn't McConnell's preferred approach. He had proposed extending current programs for five years and also suggested a two-month continuation, yet couldn't muster the votes needed to advance either measure.

The Senate couldn't pass the House measure before the 12:01 a.m. Monday deadline because of procedural obstacles raised by Paul, who says the bill doesn't do enough to limit spying.

"This is a debate over your right to be left alone," Paul said on the Senate floor during a rare Sunday session.

McConnell also tried to move the bill toward a final vote late Monday, but Paul objected again. The majority leader then scheduled the next procedural vote for 10:30 a.m. today.

Paul's strategy of using procedural obstacles to demand more restraints on NSA spying might ultimately backfire. McConnell, Burr and other Republican leaders have moved to prevent Paul's amendments from coming to a vote. Only amendments from McConnell and Burr have been allowed so far. Paul's spokesman, Jillian Lane, declined to comment in an email.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel, urged the Senate to not amend the bill.

"Any departure from this carefully crafted compromise will undoubtedly reduce support for it in the House and prolong the expiration of these intelligence tools," Schiff said in a statement Monday.

Information for this article was contributed by Ken Dilanian of The Associated Press and by Kathleen Hunter, Justin Sink, Billy House, Toluse Olorunnipa, Derek Wallbank, Michelle Jamrisko, David Weigel, David Lerman, James Rowley and Chris Strohm of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 06/02/2015

Upcoming Events