McConnell introduces bill to extend NSA surveillance
Source: Washington Post
By Ellen Nakashima April 22 at 7:07 AM
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a bill Tuesday night to extend through 2020 a controversial surveillance authority under the Patriot Act.
The move comes as a bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers is preparing legislation to scale back the governments spying powers under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
It puts McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the bills co-sponsor, squarely on the side of advocates of the National Security Agencys continued ability to collect millions of Americans phone records each day in the hunt for clues of terrorist activity.
That NSA program was revealed publicly almost two years ago by a former agency contractor, Edward Snowden. The disclosure touched off a global debate over the proper scope of surveillance by U.S. spy agencies and led President Obama to call for an end to the NSAs collection of the records.
In filing the bill, McConnell and Burr invoked a Senate rule that enabled them to bypass the traditional committee vetting process and take the bill straight to the floor. No date has been set for such consideration.
The move provoked a swift response from Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, who has been working with other panel members on legislation to end the governments mass collection of phone and other records for national security purposes.
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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mcconnell-introduces-bill-to-extend-nsa-surveillance/2015/04/21/fa4b66aa-e89d-11e4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.html
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)at the last minute?? (Rand Paul, the ACLU, Glenn Greenwald and DUers, among other)...And the common refrain from everyone was that if they just sat back and did nothing, the Patriot Act provision would expire in the summer??
I told everyone that some reform was better than no reform, and congress was going to renew it anyway, so their pseudo principled stand would be all for naught, and I caught hell for saying so...
For all the shit this forum dumps on me, sooner or later someone will have to admit that I *just* might know what I'm talking about...
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)when the FISA provisions were going to sunset, and all Harry Reid had to do was nothing, just not bring the bill to the floor, and FISA would have returned to pre-Bush status?
Remember that?
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)You can make a gloat post of your own...