Erin Kelly

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance a bill that would stop the National Security Agency from collecting the phone records of millions of Americans who are not suspected of any crime.

Senators voted 58-42 in favor of a motion to allow the USA Freedom Act to come to an up or down vote in the Senate. The motion required 60 votes to pass.

The bill is effectively dead for this year and is unlikely to be revived when the new Congress convenes in January. However, the controversial NSA program will most likely be debated again next year as Congress decides whether to renew sections of the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law that are set to expire in June.

The Freedom Act would have brought an end to the NSA's mass collection of phone data more than a year after the program was revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Snowden's revelations outraged both liberal and conservative lawmakers, who decried the NSA's "big brother" snooping on innocent Americans. But some analysts said that anger has lessened as terrorist threats against the USA by the Islamic State and other extremist groups have gained attention.

"In the past five or six months, we have witnessed heightened U.S. national security concerns with terrorist threats, geopolitical problems, and cybersecurity challenges from Russia and China," said David Fidler, professor of law at Indiana University's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. "Addressing these concerns requires strong American intelligence and surveillance capabilities — creating the potential for stronger opposition to the Snowden-inspired reforms today than existed only a few months ago."

The Freedom Act was sponsored by a rare bipartisan coalition of senators ranging from liberal Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz, R-Texas. But it did not go far enough to satisfy some privacy advocates in both parties, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. And it was opposed by hawkish lawmakers who argued that it would hamstring U.S. intelligence agencies at a time when terrorist threats against the United States are rising.

Major U.S. tech companies pushed for its approval, complaining that the NSA controversy has made it hard for them to convince foreign customers that they will not be spied upon by the U.S. government if they use U.S. phone or Internet providers.

The vote came as Americans are increasingly worried about their privacy. More than 70% of adults are concerned that the government may be accessing personal information from their social networking sites without their knowledge, according to a survey released last week by the Pew Research Center.

Leahy, lead sponsor of the Freedom Act, said Tuesday that Americans "continue to demand stronger protections for their privacy." He said opponents of the bill used scare tactics about terrorist threats to derail the legislation.

"The American people have had enough delay," he said. "They want action and real reform."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the bill would hamper the U.S. government's ability to protect Americans against the Islamic State.

"At a moment when the United States is conducting a military campaign to disrupt, dismantle and defeat (the Islamic State), now is not the time to be considering legislation that takes away the exact tools we need to combat (the Islamic State)," McConnell said.

The Obama administration strongly supported the bill, saying it would not hamper the government's ability to catch terrorists. Although the NSA could no longer collect mass data about Americans' phone records, it could still conduct targeted collections, according to a statement of support by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The NSA has used Section 215 of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act as the basis to collect millions of records from U.S. phone companies showing the date and time of a call, how long it lasted and the telephone numbers of the people who made or received the call. The data, which are saved for up to five years, do not include the actual conversations.

"The bill strengthens ... privacy and civil liberties protections, while preserving essential authorities that our intelligence and law enforcement professionals need," the OMB statement said.



In addition to ending the NSA's mass collection of phone records, the bill would require the government to disclose the number of people whose data have been collected and report how many of them were likely American citizens. The bill also would create a panel of special advocates to speak up for privacy and civil liberties in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when law enforcement officials seek permission to spy.

A spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union, which supported the Senate bill, said she fears that nothing will be done to rein in NSA snooping if Congress does not act this year.

"This (was) the last best chance to get something down before Snowden fades from public consciousness," said Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office.