A major National Security Agency bill was attached to...
A major National Security Agency bill was attached to S-1197, the National Defense Authorization Act, according to the act’s tally of amendments at the end of Thursday. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., attached the FISA Improvements Act of…
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2013 as an amendment. This bill, S-1681, preserves bulk collection of phone metadata but makes several smaller changes to surveillance law. It cleared Senate Intelligence in an 11-4 vote on Oct. 31. But a Senate aide told us it’s not Feinstein’s intention to amend FISA through the defense authorization bill. The aide emphasized the shared jurisdiction between Senate Intelligence and the Senate Judiciary Committee. But other members have filed amendments updating FISA, and given those amendments, Feinstein wanted to ensure her legislation is available in case FISA legislation is brought to the floor through the defense authorization’s amendment process, the aide said. Privacy advocates have criticized this Feinstein bill and pointed to the USA Freedom Act of Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as the stronger package limiting surveillance. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., also filed an amendment with a surveillance provision. Enzi’s brief amendment said that to be funded, any order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court carried out must include the following sentence: “This Order limits the collection of any tangible things (including telephone numbers dialed, telephone numbers of incoming calls, and the duration of calls) authorized to be collected pursuant to this Order to those tangible things that pertain to a person who is the subject of an investigation described in section 501” of FISA. Several other senators this week have filed amendments to the act touching on surveillance transparency and practices (CD Nov 21 p10). More than 500 amendments have now been proposed, and the Senate is in recess until Dec. 9. Senate leaders had initially hoped to pass the act before Thanksgiving.