The Obama administration is pushing hard to win bipartisan support for the USA Freedom Act, which would limit provisions of the USA Patriot Act that allow for the bulk collection of telephone metadata, according to
The Washington Post.
The House is expected to vote in favor of the Freedom Act on Wednesday, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is supporting a different bill that would renew the current National Security Agency's bulk data collection program through 2020.
That bill is expected to fail, according to the Post, citing analysts who say there are members of the GOP — including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — who want limits on the NSA’s surveillance authority.
President George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act into law in the weeks after 9/11.
In 2011, President Barack Obama signed a four-year extension of the law’s three key and controversial provisions: roving wiretaps, searches of business records and surveillance of "lone wolves" — individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities but not linked to terrorist groups.
Information about the bulk collection of telephone metadata was disclosed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden in 2013, setting off a firestorm of controversy between civil libertarians who believe its extreme government overreach and those who argue that the program is vital to national security.
The Obama administration had previously maintained that the program "was authorized by statute and deemed legal by a series of federal surveillance court judges," according to the Post.
The NSA collects "metadata" from major U.S. phone companies, information that includes times, dates, and durations of phone calls, but not the content.
A June 1 deadline looms to pass a new bill, otherwise the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records automatically expires. But there exists a deep divide among lawmakers.
The White House and others on the left believe limits should be put in place and argue that the Freedom Act offers the "best opportunity to maintain the government's power to obtain records of terrorist suspects with some measure of speed," the Post reports.
Technology trade groups representing the industry's largest players have signed a letter of support for the Freedom Act, according to
Tech Crunch.
The trade groups' letter states that the Freedom Act "offers an effective balance that both protects privacy and provides the necessary tools for national security, and we congratulate those who participated in the bipartisan, bicameral effort that produced the legislative text.
"Critically, the bill ends the indiscriminate collection of bulk data, avoids data retention mandates, and creates a strong transparency framework for both government and private companies to report national security requests."
In a speech on Sunday, McConnell defended the need to extend the Patriot Act’s current provisions, calling it "an important tool to prevent the next terrorist attack,"
Reuters reported.
The issue is complicated by a
federal appeals court's ruling last week that mass metadata collection is unlawful and that the "government had stretched the meaning of the statute to enable 'sweeping surveillance of Americans' data in 'staggering' volumes," according to a Post story.
A former intelligence official told the newspaper that "everyone is angry and frustrated because I think there's a sense that the opinion was a last-ditch attempt by three judges to insert themselves into the debate with nothing more than an advisory opinion."
The official characterized the appellate court's ruling as "a purely political opinion and goes way beyond what judges are allowed to do."