A group of lawmakers has introduced legislation that would permanently end a surveillance program that allows the National Security Agency to collect U.S. telephone and business records.
On Jan. 24, a group of three Democrats and three Republicans introduced the Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act in the House of Representatives, and a companion Senate bill was introduced a few days later.
The bill would end a controversial surveillance program, authorized in the 2001 Patriot Act, that had allowed the NSA to collect millions of U.S. call records before the agency reportedly suspended the program in 2018. Privacy advocates have raised concerns that the NSA could resurrect the call records collection unless Congress kills the program.
Several lawmakers and privacy groups have called for changes in the Patriot Act surveillance in recent months, but in November, Congress extended expiring surveillance programs from Dec. 15 to March 15.
The bill protects civil liberties and stops “the federal government from encroaching into our lives,” Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, one of its sponsors, said in a statement.
The bill would otherwise extend the business records collection program for four years. Still, it would exclude cell site location, GPS information, web browsing history, and internet search history from the collection.
Section 215 of the Patriot Act currently allows the FBI to ask for a court order to obtain “any tangible things,” including books, records, papers, and documents related to a terrorism investigation. That section of the law allowed for the NSA’s massive collection of telephone records for several years.
The Trump administration and several Republicans in Congress have voiced support for the current Patriot Act surveillance provisions. Supporters argue the surveillance programs are necessary to keep the United States safe from terrorism.
The current program “provides us with the necessary tools to keep Americans safe,” Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, said in September.
Further amendments to the Patriot Act aren’t needed because the 2015 USA Freedom Act, which prohibited bulk collection of records, “preserves significant national security authorities, enhances privacy and civil liberties protections, and increases transparency,” he said then.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence didn’t have an immediate comment on the bill.
Privacy and digital rights advocates praised the bill. The legislation includes many significant reforms to surveillance programs to “strengthen protections for Americans’ civil liberties,” the Center for Democracy and Technology said in an emailed statement. “These reforms are long overdue.”
The bill is a “major step forward in protecting people from warrantless and discriminatory surveillance by government authorities,” added Sandra Fulton, government relations director at Free Press Action.
“Members of Congress should understand the impact of these laws on the nation’s most vulnerable communities and should seize this moment to curtail the dragnet-surveillance powers that were granted under the deeply problematic and outdated Patriot Act,” she said.
Last October, 20 Democrats sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee calling for changes in the Patriot Act surveillance programs.
“While we do not believe that any administration should have the broad and unchecked surveillance powers permitted [in parts of the law], certainly, the Trump administration should not be entrusted with these powers,” wrote the Democrats, led by Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
Last March, 39 digital rights and privacy groups also called for limits on surveillance and the permanent end to the phone records collection program.
Sponsors of the House version of the Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act include Reps. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat; Warren Davidson, an Ohio Republican; Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat; and Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican. In addition to Daines, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon is sponsoring the Senate version.
