CFR Update: NSA Surveillance Provisions Expire Amid Senate Debate

TOP OF THE AGENDA NSA Surveillance Provisions Expire Amid Senate Debate Central portions of the Patriot Act, including the National Security Agency's bulk data collection program, expired on Monday (NYT) after a late-night Senate vote failed to extend the provisions. The post-9/11 Patriot Act is expected to be replaced later this week by new legislation, known as the USA Freedom Act (WSJ), which would scale back the NSA's authority to collect phone records and introduces new transparency rules for other surveillance activities. The Senate voted seventy-seven to seventeen on Sunday to take up the bill after the House overwhelmingly passed the legislation last month. The action comes two years after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposed the agency's mass data collection (Guardian), igniting a fierce debate over government surveillance and privacy.

ANALYSIS "Although few Americans like being spied on themselves, polling suggests they are perfectly happy to let the government spy on terrorists, foreigners in general and even on American leaders. This suggests that the dismantling of the security state is unlikely to go far," writes the Economist. "But there is little evidence in the history of the expiring laws—including the one that the government uses to justify the once-secret National Security Agency program that vacuums up Americans' phone records in bulk—to support the arguments that either side is making," writes Charlie Savage for the New York Times. "Senators have a historic opportunity to uphold, or resuscitate, the basic American belief that liberty cannot survive when government flouts its limits. On Sunday, those who represent us must either vote for Big Brother or vote for the Bill of Rights. They can't have it both ways," write Alex Abdo and Jenny Beth Martin for the Los Angeles Times.