The Senate blocked reauthorization of the Patriot Act early
Saturday, and left for Memorial Day recess without a clear plan to reauthorize
the bill before it expires May 31.
Senators
rejected both a two-month extension of the bill the National Security Agency
uses to justify its bulk collection of phone data, and a reform bill that would
make phone companies responsible for keeping the data.
The
House overwhelmingly passed the reform bill, the USA Freedom Act, and won’t be
back in session until June 1. The Senate will return from recess and resume
debate on the bill a week from Sunday, just hours before the Patriot Act
expires.
“Do
we really want this law to expire,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the
Senate floor after the votes concluded around 1 a.m. Saturday morning. “We’ve
got a week to discuss it. We’ll have one day to do it.”
“So
we better be ready next Sunday afternoon to prevent the country from being
endangered by the total expiration of the program that we’re all familiar
with.”
Republican
Sen. Rand Paul, who is running for president, and largely responsible for
preventing the Senate from agreeing to even a 24-hour extension of the bill,
lauded the delay. “I am proud to have stood up for the Bill of Rights,” he
tweeted Saturday. “But our fight is not over.”
The
USA Freedom Act would end the bulk collection of phone data by the NSA, and
require the agency to obtain the data from individual companies on a case-by-case
basis. Defense hawks worry that process would be dangerously cumbersome, and
inadequate because companies are not required to keep the data.
And
some critics, including Paul, say the bill does not fix the fundamental
problem, which is allowing the government access to massive amounts of
American’s phone data.
The
NSA currently collects and stores huge amounts of metadata, which includes
basic information about phone calls, such as phone numbers, and the date, time
and location of a call. Only 37 people are able to run a given phone
number against the data if the NSA and Department of Justice approve the
request, and if a special foreign intelligence court determines they have “a
reasonably articulated suspicion.”
A federal appeals court
recently ruled the metadata collection program is illegal under the Patriot
Act.
http://patriotupdate.com/2015/05/rand-paul-wins-senate-fails-to-pass-patriot-act-extension/
http://eaglerising.com/18865/rand-paul-wins-senate-fails-to-pass-patriot-act-extension/
No comments:
Post a Comment