Court Ruling on N.S.A.’s Data Collection Jolts Both Defenders and Reformers
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruling that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records is illegal has scrambled bipartisan efforts to overhaul the program, emboldening those who say the efforts do not go far enough and undermining Senate Republican leaders who want to keep the current program in place.
Although both chambers of Congress are under Republican control, only the House has coalesced around a bipartisan effort to make substantial changes to the government’s bulk data collection, while the Senate has grown more divided in light of the court’s decision. Emblematic of that, the three declared Senate Republicans running for the White House have adopted different positions on a path forward.
“The sacrifice of our personal liberty for security is and will forever be a false choice,” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, wrote for Time magazine, vowing to block even a short-term extension of the Patriot Act, under which phone data has been collected. “And I refuse to relinquish our constitutional rights to opportunistic and overreaching politicians.”
In the face of such disarray, federal law enforcement officials appear braced to lose some of their power, at least temporarily. “I don’t like losing any tool in our toolbox, but if we do, we press on,” said James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director. “I hope it doesn’t go away, but if it does, we press on.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/us/politics/court-ruling-on-nsa-data-collection-jolts-both-defenders-and-reformers.html
From yesterday
= new reply since forum marked as read
