With key Patriot Act provisions soon expiring, and no legislative extension in sight, the question now becomes: will the NSA actually shut down their metadata program? Some officials are telling reporters “yes,” but not everyone is convinced.
The Senate stayed from late Friday night into the wee hours of Saturday morning as Mitch McConnell attempted to pass even a one-day extension. Rand Paul led the charge to block him repeatedly, and ultimately nothing was passed.
This means that Section 215, which the government uses to justify the NSA’s bulk data collection, (although a federal court recently disagreed with that justification) is about to sunset.
Now the LA Times reports that, “hours” after the Senate failed to pass an extension, the NSA did in fact begin closing up shop on its bulk records collection:
“That process has begun,” an administration official said Saturday.
[…]
Administration officials are urging Congress to act quickly and comprehensively. A stopgap measure to extend the program past May 31 would not satisfy the court order, they say, and would not stop the dismantling of the phone record collection effort.
“We’ve said for the past several days that the wind-down process would need to begin yesterday if there was no legislative agreement,” an administration official told National Journal. “That process has begun.”
“We did not file an application for reauthorization.”
But Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr also told National Journal that these statements from the administration are “disingenuous.”
Asked whether he believed the NSA was lying to the public about an earlier shutdown, Burr said, “I think it’s disingenuous, but they don’t work for me, they work for the president.”
“I’m hearing some chatter that going dark won’t be the end of the world,” Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) told Politico. “Even if it does for a week or so doesn’t mean all the data’s lost. It just means you bring it up weeks later.”
Next Sunday, the 31st, the Senate will attempt once more to pass some kind of legislation extending the program.
