In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the U.S. Senate played host to a moment that took mass surveillance on the phone records of Americans from outrage to farce.<\/p>\n
The NSA\u2019s phone dragnet had already been declared illegal.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled that while the surveillance agency has long claimed to be acting in accordance with Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the text of that law in fact authorizes no such program. The Obama Administration has been executing a policy that the legislature never passed into being.<\/p>\n
But the law that doesn\u2019t even authorize the program is set to expire at the end of the month. And so the court reasoned that Congress could let it expire or vote to change it. For this reason, the court declined to issue an order shutting the program down.<\/p>\n
President Obama didn\u2019t shut the program down either. One might think the illegality of its ongoing operations would bother him, but he\u2019s effectively punted to Congress too.<\/p>\n
Days ago, the House of Representatives acted: they voted overwhelmingly, 338 to 88, \u201cto end the National Security Agency’s mass collection of phone records from millions of Americans with no ties to terrorism,\u201d passing the USA Freedom Act, an effort \u201cto rein in NSA surveillance while renewing key sections of the… Patriot Act.\u201d The bill divided civil libertarians, some of whom thought it didn\u2019t go far enough because the government could still access bulk data held by phone companies.<\/p>\n
That brings us to the wee hours of Saturday morning. \u201cAfter vigorous debate and intense last-minute pressure by Republican leaders, the Senate on Saturday rejected legislation that would end the federal government\u2019s bulk collection of phone records,\u201d The New York Times reports. \u201cWith the death of that measure \u2014 passed overwhelmingly in the House \u2014 senators then scrambled to hastily pass a short-term measure to keep the program from going dark when it expires June 1 but failed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The outcome is good for civil libertarians: the House is in recess; barring the unexpected, the phone dragnet will end June 1, when key provisions of the Patriot Act expire. And Senator Rand Paul seems to deserve extra credit for that outcome: \u201cThe measure failed in the Senate 57 to 42, with 12 Republicans voting for it, shortly after midnight because Mr. Paul, a candidate for the White House, dragged the procedure out as he promised to do in fund-raising tweets and emails.\u201d<\/p>\n