As Maine Democrat Shenna Bellows told us yesterday, "in a healthy democracy, the government doesn't spy on the private lives of its citizenry." Autocrats like Dick Cheney and Establishment lapdogs like the BBC's Stephen Sackur don't see it the same way as Bellows-- nor, apparently, does Boehner.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has defended the NSA's spying programs, but a growing bloc of his conference is signing on to a bill that would end the NSA's practice of collecting records on virtually all U.S. phone calls, which was revealed in leaks by Edward Snowden.In October, when Pat Leahy in the Senate and John Sensenbrenner in the House, introduced the USA FREEDOM Act, the ACLU explained to its members and supporters why it is backing their efforts to rein in the National Security Agency's bulk collection, analysis, and storage of Americans’ electronic communications.
One House Democratic aide argued that the Republican leaders are boxed in. If they don't allow a vote on standalone NSA reform legislation, the aide said, members will demand NSA-related amendments to must-pass legislation like the defense and intelligence authorization bills.
"They're stuck. They would deal with this in the way they deal with a lot of things-- by just not moving the legislation," the Democratic aide said. "Except how are they going to get other important pieces of legislation that they want to move unless they move this first?"
A GOP leadership aide acknowledged that there is "significant member interest in this issue as well as multiple committees with jurisdiction."
"Leadership is working to ensure that there is a well-coordinated process with all interested parties going forward," the leadership aide said in a statement.
House GOP leaders allowed a vote in July on an amendment from Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) that would have ended the NSA's phone data program. Despite opposition from party leaders and intense lobbying by the White House, the vote was surprisingly close-- failing to pass by just seven votes.
As speaker, Boehner usually doesn't cast a vote, but he broke the tradition to vote against the Amash amendment.
“There are, in my view, ample safeguards to protect the privacy of the American people," Boehner said after the vote. "And I know how these programs have worked. I know how they’ve worked to protect the American people, and I felt very strongly about it.”
But he argued that the vote was an example of his belief that the House should be able to "work its will."
Some members who voted against the amendment at the time said their opposition was not necessarily substantive, but that they believed such consequential legislation should receive more careful consideration.
…[S]upporters of the USA Freedom Act will have to battle the defenders of the NSA-- led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.). Rogers argues that the phone data program-- which gives the NSA access to phone numbers, call times and call durations but not the actual contents of conversations-- is critical for thwarting terrorists. His committee had planned to move its own NSA-related bill that would preserve the core of the agency's surveillance power, including the phone data collection. Multiple aides said the panel had planned to vote on a narrow bill from Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) that would only require the NSA to report more information about violations of privacy rights. But before the committee could vote on the bill, leadership intervened and had the mark-up cancelled, according to aides.
Had Pelosi not taken an investigation of the patently criminal Bush-Cheney regime "off the table" in 2006, Obama would have probably not allowed the unconstitutional NSA practices to continue. That's why accountability is so important in a democracy.
"The last five months have proven that the NSA cannot be trusted with the surveillance authorities they have been given by a secret court without the knowledge or approval of the American people," said Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. "The only way to stop the NSA's collect-it-all mentality is for Congress to pass legislation that prohibits the intelligence community from engaging in the dragnet surveillance of Americans' communications. The legislation introduced today by Sen. Leahy and Rep. Sensenbrenner is a true reform bill that rejects the false and dangerous notion that privacy and our fundamental freedoms are incompatible with security."
The bill, The USA FREEDOM Act, would enact the following core reforms to NSA surveillance authorities:
• It would end the bulk collection of Americans' records shared with third parties and put reasonable limits on Patriot Act powers targeted at people in the U.S. The new restrictions would apply not only to phone records collected under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, but national security letters and pen registers that have also been abused.
• It would amend the 2008 FISA Amendments Act to require court orders before the government could use American information collected during foreign intelligence operations.
• It would increase transparency by allowing communications providers to disclose the number of surveillance orders they receive, mandate the government publish how many people are subject to surveillance orders, and make public significant FISA Court opinions since July 2003.
• It would create a public advocate that could advise the secret surveillance court in certain cases.
…The ACLU has also filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' call records. Oral argument has been set for Nov. 22.
