Senate may move soon on surveillance reform bill

[May 20, 2015]  By Patricia Zengerle
 
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate could vote as soon as this week on a bill reforming a program that allows spy agencies to sweep up huge amounts of data about Americans' phone calls, the chamber's Republican leader said on Tuesday.

"I certainly think we ought to allow a vote on the House-passed bill. If there are not enough votes to pass that, then we need to look at an alternative," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, referring to a possible extension of the program.

Republicans, who control both the House of Representatives and the Senate, have been unable to agree on how to deal with the June 1 expiration of provisions of the USA Patriot Act used to justify the collection of billions of telephone call records and other business information.

The House voted 338-88 last week to approve the USA Freedom Act, which would end bulk data collection and replace it with a system of targeted information retrieval.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner has called for a Senate vote on the reform bill, which Democratic President Barack Obama would sign.

But McConnell, who favors extending the Patriot Act provisions, unchanged, through 2020, had not said until Tuesday whether he would allow a Senate vote. He and a few Senate security hawks insist the existing spy program is necessary to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.

Bulk telephone call data collection has been a deep concern for privacy advocates since it was exposed two years ago by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. A federal appeals found it illegal this month.

There is strong support among Republicans and Democrats for extensive reform, but few want the program to expire.

Lawmakers said Congress also might buy more time by passing an extension as short as two or three days, or two weeks, to keep the program going until they return in early June from a 10-day recess.

But both Republican Senator Rand Paul, a 2016 presidential candidate, and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden promised to block any extension.

Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the House would not support an extension. He said he would back one lasting for a few days, but would want a Senate vote on the Freedom Act.

"My sense is there's a majority in the Senate in support of the USA Freedom Act," he said at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor newspaper.

(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson and Richard Cowan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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