Curbs on NSA surveillance programs after Obama signs bill
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PRESIDENT Barack Obama has signed into law landmark legislation ending the government’s bulk telephone data dragnet, significantly reversing American policy by reining in the most controversial surveillance program since 9/11.
The bill was given final passage earlier on Tuesday by the United States Senate, after being approved by the House several days earlier.
The measure reauthorizes key national security programs that had lapsed early this week. “Glad the Senate finally passed the USA Freedom Act. It protects civil liberties and our national security,” Obama said on Twitter shortly before he signed it.
In a separate statement earlier, Obama chided lawmakers for the “needless delay and inexcusable lapse in important national security authorities”, in the days leading up to the bill’s eventual passage.
“My administration will work expeditiously to ensure our national security professionals again have the full set of vital tools they need to continue protecting the country,” the president said.
The bill halts the National Security Agency’s ability to scoop up and store metadata — telephone numbers, dates and times of calls — from millions of Americans who have no connection to terrorism.
It shifts responsibility for storing the data to telephone companies, allowing authorities to access the information only with a warrant from a secret counterterror court that identifies a specific person or group of people suspected of terror ties.
“It’s a historic moment,” Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic sponsor of the bill, said after the 67-32 vote, describing the bill as “the first major overhaul of government surveillance laws in decades.”
The vote follows days of sharp debate on the floor, with many Republicans split over their support for strong counterterror measures and the need for personal privacy protections in the wake of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s bombshell revelations about the bulk data dragnet in 2013.
Fugitive Snowden
The fugitive Snowden, alternatively seen as a villain by intelligence backers and a hero by supporters of stronger civil liberties, hailed the congressional action as “historic.”
Speaking by from Russia at a London Amnesty International event via video link just before the bill was passed, Snowden called efforts to end mass surveillance “not enough” but “an important step.”
The Republican divisions, as well as delay tactics by Senator Rand Paul, a 2016 presidential candidate, forced an expiration of the bulk data collection program and two other sections of the USA Patriot Act, roving wiretap and lone-wolf tracking authorities, all of which expired at midnight Sunday. The legislation that passed on Tuesday would reauthorize the latter two provisions.
The strong vote marked a stunning rebuke to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sought in vain to amend the bill.
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