Vote on Crucial NSA Reform Legislation Coming Up

November 18, 2014

A Crucial Vote on the Surveillance Bill

The Republican Party is so badly fractured that it is impossible to tell what steps it will take on domestic surveillance once it assumes control of Congress in January. Its rising libertarian wing wants to crack down on abuses of Americans’ privacy, but many of its leaders express full support for any action the intelligence agencies want to take.

That’s why it’s important that the Senate break a filibuster on the USA Freedom Act, which would reduce or end the bulk collection of telephone records, in a vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. If the bill doesn’t pass in the current lame-duck session of the Senate, still controlled by Democrats, it may never get past the 60-vote hurdle in the next session of Congress.

The bill, sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, would require the National Security Agency to ask phone companies for the records of a specific person or address when it is searching for terrorists, instead of scooping up all the records in an area code or city. It would force the agency to show why it needs those records, and to disclose how much data is being collecting.

The bill would also create a panel of advocates to support privacy rights and civil liberties in arguments before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court; currently, there is no one to offer opposition to government requests before the court. The government would have to issue clear summaries of the court’s most significant rulings.

Not every potential surveillance abuse is addressed in the measure. For example, it leaves open the possibility of “backdoor” searches of American data that investigators come across when searching for the communications of foreigners. It exempts the F.B.I. from transparency on searches. And it is not clear whether the government believes there is some other hidden legal authority for bulk collection other than the one addressed in the USA Freedom Act.

Nonetheless, the bill is a good way to begin restoring individual privacy that has been systematically violated by government spying, revealed through the leaks provided by Edward Snowden. It has been supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other privacy watchdogs. On Sunday, a group of the biggest technology companies — including Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter — endorsed the bill because it allows more disclosure of the demands for information made of them by the government.

In addition to Senate Democrats, the bill is supported by some hard-right Republicans, including Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah. But Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who will soon be the Senate majority leader, hassupported the N.S.A.’s spying on Americans. That’s a good a reason to pass it before a new Senate can water it down.