White House Worried Congress Will Limit NSA Spy Powers

By David Kravets, Wired Magazine

24 July 13

he House is expected to vote later this week on an amendment to a roughly $600 billion defense spending package that would repeal authorization for the National Security Agency's dragnet collection of phone call metadata in the United States.

As part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2014, the lower chamber will vote on a measure proposed by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan). In essence, the amendment to the massive Pentagon spending package would end authority for the once-secret spy program the White House insists is necessary to protect national security.

The amendment is one of about 100 that lawmakers are to consider on topics ranging from Egypt to Syria. The Amash-Conyers amendment could be voted on as early as Wednesday.

The expected vote comes days after President Barack Obama's administration told a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit about the program that the wholesale vacuuming up of all phone-call metadata in the United States is in the "public interest," does not breach the constitutional rights of Americans, and cannot be challenged in a court of law because no individual Americans have legal standing to sue.

That lawsuit, and the Amash-Conyers amendment (.pdf) are in response to a disclosure last month by the Guardian. The newspaper posted a leaked copy of a top secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinion requiring Verizon Business to provide the National Security Agency the phone numbers of both parties involved in all calls, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number for mobile callers, calling card numbers used in the call, and the time and duration of the calls.

The government confirmed the authenticity of the leak and last week suggested many more, or "certain telecommunication service providers" are required to fork over the same type of metadata.

The law that has been authorizing the surveillance is the Patriot Act - adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks - and greatly expanded the government’s power to intrude into the private lives of Americans.

The amendment - one of two introduced on the topic - substantially alters one of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act - Section 215 - that allows the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize broad warrants for most any type of "tangible" records, including those held by banks, doctors and phone companies.

However, the amendment is a long shot. Lawmakers have repeatedly voted to prevent the act from expiring or against altering its language.

Under the Patriot Act, the government only needs to show that the information is "relevant" to an authorized investigation. No connection to a terrorist or spy is required. The amendment would effectively gut the dragnet phone-metadata program that commenced following the 2001 terror attacks by only authorizing the metadata snooping against targets who are "the subject of an investigation."

The second amendment (.pdf) on the topic, introduced by Rep. Richard Nugent (R-Florida) is crafted to resemble similar reform. But as Techdirt points out, the package appears to be "just reinforcing the status quo. Someone looks like they're trying to pull a fast one on everyone."

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