[Infowarrior] - Patriot Act powers to lapse at midnight as Senate fails to agree on NSA reform

[Richard Forno]

Patriot Act powers to lapse at midnight as Senate fails to agree on NSA reform
Dan Roberts and Ben Jacobsin Washington and Spencer Ackerman in New York

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/31/nsa-reform-senate-deal-as-patriot-act

Republican senator Rand Paul forced at least a temporary shutdown of sweeping US surveillance powers on Sunday night after refusing to allow an accelerated vote on compromise legislation designed to more narrowly restrain the National Security Agency.

In a double blow for Washington security hawks, represented by embattled Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, it now looks likely that Congress will have to wait several days before passing that bill, the USA Freedom Act.

The reform legislation, which bans the NSA from collecting Americans’ telephone records in bulk, was initially opposed by McConnell. But with the clock ticking down toward the midnight expiration of broader powers initially granted after 9/11 under the Patriot Act, Republican leaders had few options but to get behind the bill as the best way of preserving other surveillance authority.

“This is now the only realistic way forward,” said McConnell as he conceded there was no longer time to seek alternatives to a version of the USA Freedom Act that was previously passed by the House of Representatives. Instead, the Senate majority leader is reluctantly embracing the House-passed bill to which he previously objected, only with the addition of what he called “a few modest amendments”.

McConnell’s concession was a tacit acknowledgement that the bulk collection of US phone records exposed in June 2013 by the Guardian, thanks to leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden, will end.

The Senate voted 77 to 17 to proceed to debate on the USA Freedom Act. Even Paul, after the procedural vote, conceded that the bill will ultimately pass. “Tonight begins the process of ending bulk collection,” he said.

Paul, who is running for president on a libertarian-leaning agenda, added insult to injury for his party’s leaders by refusing to offer consent for a final vote on USA Freedom, which he believes does not go far enough in tackling the surveillance abuses revealed by Snowden.

“I am not going to take it any more and I believe the American people are not going to take it any more,” said Paul as the Senate convened for a rare Sunday evening session to deal with the crisis.

McConnell attempted to seek a temporary extension for additional Patriot Act powers to be affected by the expiration of powers unrelated to the NSA’s bulk domestic phone metadata program – including so-called “lone-wolf” and “roving wiretap” capabilities.

But even a temporary continuation of those surveillance authorities were opposed by Paul, who has the power to block such attempts to speed up Senate business by seeking unanimous consent.

Now, not only will the NSA domestic surveillance program shut down, so will three provisions of the Patriot Act that have long been the bane of privacy advocates – particularly the “business records” provision that the FBI has used to amass what a recent Justice Department report described as “large collections” of Americans’ internet data.

Paul’s tactics provoked angry seasons from establishment Republicans, including an angry exchange with John McCain, who accused him of jeopardizing national security to boost his presidential campaign. McCain said on Sunday that Paul “obviously has a higher priority on his fundraising and political ambitions than securing the nation”.

Paul, gesturing toward the acrimony that persists in the Senate even after the vote made passage of the USA Freedom Act a forgone conclusion, said that his Republican opponents were rooting for a terrorist attack to embarrass him.

“Some of them I think secretly want an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me,” Paul said. 

Obama and his intelligence chief, James Clapper, also made a final push on Friday for the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act, alleging that the expiration of the Patriot Act provisions would expose the US to terrorism.

But a Justice Department inspector general report found that the FBI had come to use the business-records provision to amass “large collections” of Americans’ communications data. It noted that the spread of internet access had lead to an explosion in information accessible to the FBI, and cast doubt on Justice Department and congressional assurances that the authority, known as Section 215, is critical for counter-terrorism.

“[T]he agents we interviewed did not identify any major case developments that resulted from use of the records obtained in response to Section 215 orders, but told us that the material produced pursuant to Section 215 orders was valuable in that it was used to support other investigative requests, develop investigative leads, and corroborate other information,” the DoJ report found.

Originally mindful of the privacy implications of Section 215, Congress permitted it to “sunset” after five years. Yet with nearly all aspects of its practical applications hidden under extensive secrecy – especially the post-2006 addition of NSA bulk surveillance – reauthorization of the Patriot Act provisions had become routine.

The last reapproval, in 2011, passed 72-23 in the Senate and 250-153 in the House.

But this time, Snowden’s revelations pierced the veneer of government secrecy and ushered in perhaps the most open debate about surveillance powers in the NSA’s 63-year history.

“No doubt it played a role,” Republican senator Dean Heller told the Guardian. “I think it played the same role for me as it did for most of the American people, who were surprised and stunned that the government had this sort of access to this kind of data.”


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