House Votes to Change Patriot Act by Stopping Bulk Phone Data Collection

(Before It's News)

The House of Representatives on Wednesday gave Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a big reason to crank up his hustle if he wants to hang onto the part of the Patriot Act that allows for the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. And to be clear, he does want to keep that contested clause in the legislation.

Also read: Why the ACLU’s Big Victory Against NSA Surveillance Falls Short

The New York Times brought word of the day’s House vote on the metadata issue:

Under the bipartisan bill, which passed 338 to 88, the Patriot Act would be changed to prohibit bulk collection by the National Security Agency of metadata charting telephone calls made by Americans. In addition, the legislation would bar permitting bulk collection of records using other tools like so-called national security letters, which are a kind of administrative subpoena.

The near unanimity in the House is not reflected in the Senate, where a bipartisan group that backs the House bill faces opposition from Mr. McConnell and a small but powerful group of defense hawks who want no change, and from another faction led by Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, that is pressing for even greater restrictions of data collection.

A compromise of some form must be reached before June 1, when the provision of the Patriot Act that allows the N.S.A. dragnet expires.

The paper also pointed out that Edward Snowden’s metadata-related revelations served as a catalyst to this latest legislative development, which was also influenced by last week’s federal appeals court ruling that determined the NSA’s bulk collection activities were illegal.

—Posted by Kasia Anderson

Related Entries

• May 13, 2015 David Cameron Unleashes Frightening Attack on ‘Tolerance’ Through Proposed Extremism Laws
• May 13, 2015 Interview: Robert Scheer and Chris Hedges on the Military-Industrial-Intelligence Complex (Part 1)

• Tactics South African mercenaries used to defeat Boko Haram in Nigeria
• Amtrak Attack? A Projectile Hits One Train Signaling A Possibility Of A Terror Attack
• Self-Driving Cars Blamed For Accidents In California
• Another Giant Asteroid to Skim Past Earth – How Long Will Planet’s Lucky Streak of near Misses Hold?
• 3 Ways To Deal With Unsupportive Family Who Don’t Understand Your Spirituality
• Wyoming law: Criminalizes citizen’s for collecting data on Agriculture
• The Coming Spiritual Revolution – Rainn Wilson
• Economic News: Coming US Economic Collapse, Martial Law; Bee Die-off; Biopharmological Crops; Celente
• GFP Newsletter – 5/13/2015
• Russia Invites Greece to Join BRICS as Greek Financial Crisis Deepens