Critical NSA Reform Bill Fails in the Senate

Senate lawmakers working to reform NSA surveillance were struck a fatal blow tonight when a critical bill that would have curbed some of the spy agency’s controversial activity failed to obtain enough votes.

In one of their last acts before the year sunsets, pro-reform Senators attempted to advance the USA FREEDOM Act but failed by just two votes to obtain the 60 votes needed to move the bill forward.

Democrats, who maintain the majority in the Senate, were eager to push the bill through during the end-of-year session before Republicans assume the majority position next year. Civil liberties groups, which support reforms currently laid out in the bill, considered tonight’s vote the last-gasp chance for the bill to move forward before some of its staunchest supporters hand over seats lost in the November elections.

The bill would have put an end to the government’s controversial bulk collection of phone records from U.S. telecoms—a program first uncovered by USA Today in 2006 but re-exposed in 2013 in leaks by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The bill would instead have kept records in the hands of telecoms and forced the NSA to obtain court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to gain access to them. It would also have required the agency to use specific search terms to narrow its access to only relevant records.

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/usa-freedom-act-fails-in-senate/