[Infowarrior] - Congress Quietly Decides To Delete Key NSA Reform In CRomnibus Agreement

[Richard Forno]

Congress Quietly Decides To Delete Key NSA Reform In CRomnibus Agreement

from the congressional-failure dept

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141203/16192629321/congress-quietly-decides-to-delete-key-nsa-reform-cromnibus-agreement.shtml

You may recall, back in June, that there was a key House vote that took NSA supporters by surprise. An amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill pushed by a bi-partisan team of Thomas Massie, Jim Sensenbrenner and Zoe Lofgren passed overwhelmingly, with a plan to slam the door shut on questionable NSA "backdoor searches" (as described in detail earlier). The House voted 293 to 123, making it a pretty clear and overwhelming statement that Congress did not, in fact, support such practices by the NSA. 

But, of course, the NSA gets the last laugh. As part of the big lameduck CRomnibus effort in Congress, it appears that the House leadership has agreed to drop that amendment, despite the fact it passed overwhelmingly. Apparently, this is angering many who supported that amendment, and in response, according to Cato's Patrick Eddington, Congress is going to bring up the CRomnibus under closed rule to basically block anyone attempting to add it back in as an amendment (which is what some had hoped to do). 

It's basically yet another giant middle finger to the idea of any meaningful surveillance reform -- even one that the majority of Congress wanted.


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Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.