Bill to Curb NSA Spying Clears House
Friday, May 23, 2014 at 5:46AM The first legislation aimed specifically at curbing US surveillance abuses revealed by Edward Snowden passed the House of Representatives on Thursday, with a majority of both Republicans and Democrats.
But last-minute efforts by intelligence community loyalists to weaken key language in the USA Freedom Act led to a larger-than-expected rebellion by members of Congress, with the measure passing by 303 votes to 121.
The bill's authors concede it was watered down significantly in recent days, but insist it will still outlaw the practice of bulk collection of US telephone metadata by the NSA first revealed by Snowden.
Some members of Congress were worried that the bill will fail to prevent the National Security Agency from continuing to collect large amounts of data on ordinary US citizens.
“Perfect is rarely possible in politics, and this bill is no exception,” said Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, who has led efforts on the House judiciary committee to rein in the NSA.
“In order to preserve core operations of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the administration insisted on broadening certain authorities and lessening certain restrictions. Some of the changes raise justifiable concerns. I don’t blame people for losing trust in their government, because the government violated their trust.”
Despite the changes, Sensenbrenner and other influential reformers such as ranking committee Democrat John Conyers backed passage of the final bill saying it was an “opportunity to make a powerful statement: Congress does not support bulk collection.”
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