Senate Intelligence Committee Rejects A Bunch Of Attempts To Amend Dianne Feinstein's Fake NSA Reform Bill

from the but-of-course dept

Fri, Nov 15th 2013 6:30pm — Mike Masnick

The Senate Intelligence Committee apparently just voted on Dianne Feinstein's fake NSA reform bill, which actually legalizes all of the illegal spying and adds a few new ways for the government to spy on everyone. Some of the members of the committee tried to add some amendments which would have made the bill do at least a few minor useful things, but it sounds like all of those were rejected. Incredibly, even though the NSA has been indicating pretty strongly that it's fine if the data it collects can only be held for three years, rather than the five it currently uses, an amendment limiting such data collection to three years was rejected. Even Dianne Feinstein supported that amendment, but increasingly disappointing Senator Angus King (like so many politicians, he seemed promising... until he got into office) voted with the Republicans on the Committee who all wanted to keep the surveillance backups for five years. As for other amendments, here's how Politico summarized them:

Another 7-8 casualty in the intel panel mark-up was a provision to ban the bulk collection of cell-site information that can show where a caller is physically located at the time of making or receiving a call. The NSA has acknowledged running experiments to handle such data, but says it isn’t collecting it now. Most panel Democrats supported the geolocation data ban, and most Republicans opposed it, but some crossed the lines. Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), whose state is home to the NSA, voted against the ban. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted for it.

The third proposed reform to fall 7-8 was an amendment by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to require that any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decision finding a violation of the Constitution be made public. Again, most Democrats supported the proposal, while most Republicans opposed it. This time, Feinstein and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) bucked their Democratic colleagues. Collins joined with six Democrats in favor of the transparency mandate.

The overall bill passed out of committee 11-4, with Senators Wyden, Udall, Heinrich and Coburn voting against it. As the Politico article notes, Coburn voting against it is a bit of a surprise, since he's been seen as an NSA supporter. In fact, the article suggests he voted against it because he thinks it puts too many restrictions on the NSA, which is crazy since it puts fewer restrictions than they have today. Specifically, Coburn doesn't want any limits on how long the NSA can keep your data, which is downright nutty.

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Filed Under: amendments, dianne feinstein, fisa, fisa improvements act, mark udall, nsa, ron wyden, surveillance, tom coburn

13 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2013 @ 7:25pm

Can any senator join the Senate Intelligence Committee? Do new members need to be voted in by the current committe?

Seems like we need more votes on the committe. Fifteen votes ain't cut'n it.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2013 @ 9:01pm

it will keep happening until the people reject them... one a world wide scale that is
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2013 @ 9:03pm

Re:
let me add to that, that I'm not referring to this wholly. I'm referring to the constant screwing us in our already sore asses.
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Pixelation, 15 Nov 2013 @ 10:14pm

Forever and a day...
Perhaps we should demand that they keep all of the data in perpetuity.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Nov 2013 @ 10:37pm

"So how long do you hold my Data, Mr NSA?"

"Five Years"

"So how long do you ACTUALLY hold it for?"

"That's classified."
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2013 @ 3:31am

What they want
These senators �the majority on the Senate Intelligence Committee� want America to be a nation where government gets a record whenever people talk to each other.

Whenever Americans talk to each other, their government takes note of that conversation.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2013 @ 3:40am

What they want (part ii)
Another 7-8 casualty in the intel panel mark-up was a provision to ban the bulk collection of cell-site information that can show where a caller is physically located at the time of making or receiving a call.

These senators, eight members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, want America to be a nation where the government gets a record of everywhere anyone goes.

When Americans stay at home, their government takes note of that.

When Americans go places, their goverment tracks them there.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Nov 2013 @ 6:40am

When you least expect it - you're elected - you're the star today,
Smile ! .. you're on candid camera
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Violated (profile), 16 Nov 2013 @ 1:53pm

Well this is only their Intelligence Committee which is obviously Intelligence biased where I guess passing this resolution highlights how Unintelligent many are.

I highly doubt the full Senate will pass this one simply turning all that is unlawful into lawful. Yeah let them ignore all the public disgust by saying "no problem here". Such supreme corruption would make people almost happy if "terrorists" exploded the Senate.

Well as already stated this one should not pass when it should be clear to most that the NSA has far exceeded what they have been authorised to do.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2013 @ 4:27pm

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient...
...is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion but to allow very lively debate within a narrow section of that spectrum," ~ Noam Chomsky

Apt description of senatorial committee theatrics.
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Pragmatic, 18 Nov 2013 @ 6:06am

Re: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient...
Damn straight! I don't like Chomsky as a rule, but when he's right, he's right. I actually see this on both sides of the aisle. The middle is actually a healthy place to be, people.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2013 @ 7:11am

Most panel Democrats supported the geolocation data ban, and most Republicans opposed it, but some crossed the lines.

Apparently most Republicans aren't about small government after all.
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cubicleslave (profile), 18 Nov 2013 @ 7:21am

Well, so much for that congressional oversight. Perhaps everyone voting for Feinstein's bill had their Constitutional blinders on so all they could see was "but terrorists!"
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