“Nobody at the NSA is routinely listening to your phone calls,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on ABC’s “This Week” this morning, explaining that he does not support a House bill that would end the intelligence agency’s controversial bulk-data collection program.
“The House-passed bill does not require the telephone companies to keep the records. I fear the House-passed bill will basically end the program,” McConnell said.
“I want to reassure everybody that there are plenty of safeguards in this program,” he said. “Nobody at the NSA is routinely listening in to your telephone conversations.”
“I don’t want us to go dark, in effect, and I’m afraid that the House-passed bill will basically be the end of the program, we’ll not be able to have yet another tool that we need to combat this terrorist threat from overseas,” said McConnell.
Fellow Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul doesn’t like the House bill, either, for different reasons. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” today Paul cited a recent appeals court ruling that the data collection is illegal.
“I don’t want to replace [the Patriot Act] with another system,” Paul said.”I really think that we could get along with the Constitution just fine. We did for over 200 years.”
The House bill, supported by President Obama, passed with an overwhelming majority of 338 votes.
