House Passes Repeal of NSA Call Detail Records Program; Lee, Paul Plan to Block
The House passed legislation 278-136 Wednesday that would end NSA’s call detail records program (see 2003100031). The chamber was considering amendments in the early evening. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., plan to block the legislation, which revises…
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and renews the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It “doesn’t fix what’s wrong with FISA. It would not have stopped the spying that occurred against” President Donald Trump, Lee tweeted: “I will do everything I can to oppose it in the Senate,” and if it passes, Trump should veto it. “It is by no means a perfect bill,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said on the House floor Wednesday. “There are many other changes to FISA that I would have liked to have seen here -- but this bill includes important reforms.” USA Freedom Act Section 215 surveillance authorities are to expire Sunday. Attorney General William Barr announced support for the House compromise. The House bill contains “new requirements and compliance provisions that will protect against abuse and misuse in the future while ensuring that this critical tool is available when appropriate to protect the safety of the American people,” Barr said. That Barr, who helped craft the phone records program, supports the bill “is further proof that the bill is utterly inadequate,” said American Civil Liberties Union Senior Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani. The ACLU wrote lawmakers opposing the House legislation, saying the changes “are minimal -- in many cases merely representing a codification of the status quo.”