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| Not with the program to end secrecy of court decisions that allow massive domestic spying on your phone calls: Sens. Mike Johanns (R-NE),Charles Grassley (R-IA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Deb Fischer (R-NE) |
TechDirt reports that a bipartisan group of eight Senators have now introduced a bill to end the secret interpretation of the law
which enabled the NSA, via the rubber-stamping FISA Court, to claim
that the FISA Amendments Act enabled them to sweep up basically all
phone call data on everyone.
The bill, advanced by Jeff Merkley (D-OR) will have the support of Mike Lee (R-UT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT),
Dean Heller (R-NV), Mark Begich (D-AK), Al
Franken (D-MN), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Ron
Wyden (D-OR).
Leahy, being the chair of the Judiciary Committee, is important, suggesting that this bill isn't automatically dead in the water. During the FISA Amendments Act fight at the end of 2012, Leahy was one of only a few Senators (along with Merkley and Wyden) who pushed back on just doing a straight reauthorization. In fact, it sounds like this bill will be similar to the one that Merkley pushed as an amendment to the renewal of the FISA Amendments Act last year, which got shot down -- but did score 37 votes in the Senate. Perhaps with Leahy's support, and all the news going on, it can get a few more votes.If you live in Iowa and Nebraska and are disgusted that those states' senators are doing little to nothing to resist massive government incursions on the privacy of the 300 million or so citizens who are not terrorists, why not go to StopWatching.us and let them know you're not happy with them?
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