House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. listens to testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday May 19, 2015. Surveillance reform hits more turbulence Some House members don’t like where the Senate is heading.

The Senate’s proposed changes to a popular surveillance reform bill are already running into resistance in the House.

The chief authors behind the USA Freedom Act—which would rein in the National Security Agency’s bulk collection program that sweeps up Americans’ phone records—warned Monday that the Senate’s changes to the bill won’t fly in the House.


“The House is not likely to accept the changes proposed by Senator McConnell,” said the lawmakers—Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). “Section 215 has already expired. These amendments will likely make that sunset permanent. The Senate must act quickly to pass the USA Freedom Act without amendment.”

Senior Senate Republicans believe that their proposed changes to the USA Freedom Act are modest and are likely to pass the chamber when they come up for a vote, tentatively on Tuesday afternoon. The amendment votes will be held at a simple majority threshold, making Senate passage easier.

The proposed changes include requiring telephone companies — which are responsible for holding the bulk data under the House bill — to notify the government six months in advance of changing their retention policy; and calling on the director of national intelligence to certify that the phone companies have successfully transitioned into the new system. Other Senate amendments would lengthen the six-month transition period in the House bill to a year, as well as gut the bill’s effort to make public any significant opinions from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

“They are reasonable,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said Monday of the proposed changes. “They don’t blow up this legislation.”

But key House lawmakers are insisting that the Senate pass the USA Freedom Act without changes — especially considering that the legal authority for the PATRIOT Act provisions have already expired.

“The proposed amendments in the Senate impose a data retention notification requirement on American telecommunication providers, give the Director of National Intelligence – and not Congress – the authority to decide whether to end bulk collection, unnecessarily extend the current bulk collection program for a year, and water-down the House-passed FISA Court amicus provision,” the House lawmakers said Monday. “These amendments only serve to weaken the House-passed bill and postpone timely enactment of legislation that responsibly protects national security while enhancing civil liberty protections.”