With Congress deadlocked over the renewal of a critical federal surveillance law, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday endorsed legislation to extend the program “as is” for 60 days.
McConnell announced in a floor speech that he will hold a vote on the short extension, and said it would give Congress time to work on differences on legislation that would reform the program.
“This extension will allow for the Intelligence Committee to continue its efforts to produce a compromise bill we can send to the House that does not destroy an important counterterrorism tool that’s needed to protect American lives,” McConnell said.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers are divided over a section of the Patriot Act that authorizes the National Security Agency to spy on the nation’s phone calls and electronic messages.
That section expires at the end of the month, and the Senate is scheduled to adjourn for a one-week recess.
McConnell will hold votes on two options, including his own bill to renew the program without any changes for another five years.
Senators will also vote on the USA Freedom Act, an NSA reform bill passed overwhelmingly by the House that would reform the program by stopping the bulk collection of domestic electronic and phone data. The reform bill would allow the NSA to retrieve the data from telecommunications companies who hold onto it for a period of time.
A broad coalition of Republicans and Democrats back the reform bill, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., but McConnell is deeply opposed to it and believes it will undermine the NSA’s ability to detect domestic terrorism threats.
In Friday floor remarks, McConnell said the USA Freedom Act does not mandate that the telecom companies hold onto the information the NSA may eventually seek.
“This is beyond troubling,” McConnell said. “We should not establish an alternate system that contains a glaring hole in its ability to function, namely the complete absence of any requirement for data retention.”
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., has talked about writing legislation that would allow a two-year transition from the NSA collecting the data to one where they obtain it from the telecom companies.
But Senate opponents of the current law have pledged to block even a short-term extension, so it’s not clear whether it can garner the 60 votes needed to pass.
