Excerpt
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): In a vote on the Senate floor last night, lawmakers blocked a bill that would have drastically changed the way the National Security Agency currently monitors American citizens.
MAN: On this vote, the yeas are 58, the nays are 42.
GWEN IFILL: With that, the USA Freedom Act effectively died on the Senate floor last night, failing to garner the 60 votes needed to move to full debate.
The legislation would have ended the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of domestic phone call records, so-called metadata.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, (D) Vermont, Chair, Judiciary Committee: Our bill protects Americans.
GWEN IFILL: The lead sponsor, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, spoke for most of his fellow Democrats.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: The USA Freedom Act provides for commonsense reforms to government surveillance. It promotes greater accountability and transparency of the government’s surveillance programs.
GWEN IFILL: Former NSA employee Edward Snowden revealed the secret bulk collection program last year. It was authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. This new bill would have forced the agency to get court orders for specific data from telecom companies. Most Republicans opposed the measure.
Georgia’s Saxby Chambliss, ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called it totally flawed.
SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS, (R) Georgia: But the fact is, there cannot be one single case pointed to by anybody who can show that as a result of the collection of metadata under 215, any American has had their privacy rights breached. It simply has not happened. It will not happen if we keep this program in place.
GWEN IFILL: President Obama had proposed curbing the NSA’s data gathering, and the House approved its own weaker version of the bill in may. The White House supported the Senate version, in part because the law authorizing the entire program expires next June.
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