Today, the Leadership of the House of Representatives gave the green light to an

amendment to the USA FREEDOM Act that would significantly weaken the bill’s ban

on the government’s bulk collection of data, despite the broader consensus that

bulk collection must end. The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and other

civil liberties groups long supported the USA FREEDOM Act, but have withdrawn

their support for the House version of the bill.

“This legislation was designed to prohibit bulk collection, but has been made so

weak that it fails to adequately protect against mass, untargeted collection of

Americans’ private information. The bill now offers only mild reform and goes

against the overwhelming support for definitively ending bulk collection,” said

CDT President and CEO Nuala O’Connor.

The bill now offers only mild reform and goes

against the overwhelming support for definitively ending bulk collection.

“The Leadership of the House is demonstrating that it wants to end the debate

about surveillance, rather than end bulk collection,” said Harley Geiger, CDT

Senior Counsel. “As amended, the bill may not prevent collection of data on a

very large scale in a manner that infringes upon the privacy of Americans with

no connection to a crime or terrorism. This is quite disappointing given the

consensus by the public, Congress, the President, and two independent review

groups that ending bulk collection is necessary,” Geiger added.

The USA FREEDOM Act was introduced as multi-prong response to a variety of

problems revealed through disclosure of NSA surveillance activities, notably the

controversial practice of collecting in bulk the records of hundreds of millions

of phone calls to, from and within the US, which the bill banned. The bill

received the strong support of a broad, bipartisan coalition of advocacy

organizations, as well as major tech companies. Earlier this month the House

Judiciary Committee amended the bill to remove many other reforms, but voted to

include a clear prohibition on bulk collection of telephone call records and of

other records under other intelligence authorities. The amended version of the

USA FREEDOM Act passed unanimously out of the House Judiciary and Intelligence

Committees.

Today, House Leadership, acting through the Rules Committee and in cooperation

with the Obama Administration, approved a manager’s amendment to USA FREEDOM

that makes significant changes to the bill it comes to the House Floor for a

vote.

“The USA FREEDOM Act was a strong reform measure when it was introduced. The

bill was watered down in the House Judiciary Committee, but it was still an

effective prohibition on bulk collection,” said CDT Senior Counsel Harley

Geiger. “Unfortunately, the version of the USA FREEDOM Act that will reach the

House Floor will be so weakened that it may continue to allow mass, untargeted

collection of Americans’ private records in the future. This is not the reform

the world sought.”