Only NSA reform Congress passed this year gets cut in ‘cromnibus’ spending bill

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So much for progress.

The only National Security Agency reform to get passed this year was quietly overridden in the House-passed “CRomnibus” spending bill.

The  bill essentially takes away the legislation passed earlier this year that prevents the NSA from conducting “backdoor” searches of Americans’ electronic communications, the Daily Caller reported.

“I’m watching the will of the people be subverted. Our representative democracy has been short-circuited with this omnibus,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R- Ky.), who co-sponsored the original NSA reform measure with Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), told the Huffington Post.

In place of this ban is far weaker language that says that the NSA must not “target” American citizens’ content for surveillance. But the agency has found ways around similar provisions in the past and its specific definition of targeting would still allow it to collect and search Americans’ emails as long as they are sent abroad.

“It is a complete placebo. It is restatement of existing law,” Massie told HuffPo. “I’m almost embarrassed that they put it in the bill, because it does absolutely nothing.”

This elimination of the law shows just how much needs to be done to change the mindset of the entire Congress on NSA reform, Massie said, and harkens back to November when a Senate NSA reform bill sponsored by Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) died at 58 votes, two short of the number needed to end debate under Senate rules.

Massie told the Huffington Post that he thinks things will change with the new Congress and hopes to tackle NSA reform again.

“A lot of Republican freshmen … are going to be really good on this issue,” he said.