The major post-Edward Snowden legislation meant to constrain the National Security Agency received a new lease on life Wednesday when the Senate majority leader paved the way for the USA Freedom Act to receive a vote before the congressional session expires.  Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who will cease being majority leader when his party returns to the minority in January, filed a procedural motion that will permit the bill to receive a hearing on the Senate floor, perhaps as early as next week. Its supporters have feared that Senate inaction would quietly kill the only post-9/11 attempt at curtailing mass surveillance.  The USA Freedom Act, which passed the House of Representatives in May with bipartisan support, seeks to get the NSA out of the business of bulk domestic phone records collection, though how far it restrains the surveillance agency is a matter of dispute.  While privacy advocates and technology groups had championed the bill when it was introduced last fall, many revoked their support after compromises with the Obama administration and intelligence agencies expanded the definition of what data the government can collect.  The Senate version is considered by civil libertarians to be more protective of privacy than its House counterpart, though it will still permit the government to obtain thousands of “call detail records” off a single court warrant.  Currently, a secret surveillance court issues a blanket order to collect all Americans’ phone data on an “ongoing daily basis”, the source of immense domestic controversy after the Guardian revealed it in June 2013 thanks to Snowden’s disclosure.  Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is the bill’s Senate architect, had pressed Reid and the administration to take up the bill in the post-election Congress, known as a lame-duck session.  “The American people are wondering whether Congress can get anything done,” Leahy said in a late Wednesday statement. “The answer is yes. Congress can and should take up and pass the bipartisan USA Freedom Act, without delay.”  The bill’s House author and chief champion, Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner, praised Reid for moving the bill forward.  “There is no excuse not to pass this fundamental piece of legislation during the lame duck,” Sensenbrenner said in a statement.  Opposition to the USA Freedom Act is as bipartisan as its support. The Senate intelligence committee, which has defended the NSA through a year and a half of public criticism, is a hive of skepticism about a bill many members fear will leave the NSA insufficiently able to detect terrorist threats.  Congressional advocates of the bill, concerned about Senate inaction, recently warned that failure to pass the USA Freedom Act would prompt an expiration of a central surveillance authority in the Patriot Act, which the NSA has claimed justifies its bulk domestic phone records dragnet.
Harry Reid, leader of the outgoing Democratic Senate majority, attempts to bring USA Freedom Act to a vote