Lawmakers from across the country are facing questions about NSA activity. | AP Photos NSA questions hit pols back home

LANGHORNE, Pa. — Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick has spent many summers here on his home turf blasting big government, big taxes, big Washington — but recently he’s added another item to his list: Big Brother.

Even during his speeches on jobs, health care and the economy, the Republican congressman said he has started fielding a few questions about privacy, spying and surveillance, a sign that fears about the ultra-secret National Security Agency have spread beyond the Beltway as lawmakers embark on their annual town-hall tours.


The NSA’s powers to obtain phone call logs and Internet chats haven’t spawned the fury some lawmakers recall all too well from the fiery battle over health care reform. Nor has government surveillance supplanted the economy as the leading issue on the nation’s conscience. New Al Qaeda threats against U.S. embassies, meanwhile, have reinforced for some on Capitol Hill the importance of strong counter-terrorism programs.

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Still, doubts and criticisms about government snooping have started to surface in numerous districts and states, a reflection that Edward Snowden’s leaks are kindling public suspicions. Amid the mounting revelations, some voters seem eager to have a debate that President Barack Obama and most of Washington never wanted in the first place. A Washington Post report Thursday that the NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times a year may only add to the questions lawmakers face.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), for example, already has tangled with protestors who are seething over the pol’s position on surveillance, and activists have rallied against House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) has addressed her constituents’ deep-seated distrust of government directly. And perhaps looking to capitalize on the news, Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) had invited the reporter who first unveiled the scope of the NSA’s surveillance programs — Glenn Greenwald — to speak at one of his campaign events.

“There’s a very real interest and concern expressed more frequently than ever before,” said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who’s in his home state of Connecticut. “I think Americans have become strongly questioning about big institutions in their lives — not just big government, but big banks, big corporations.”

The national conversation about government surveillance originates with Snowden, whose revelations have illuminated a U.S. intelligence apparatus that’s able to obtain a foreign suspect’s phone call logs, Internet chats and more. It’s also raised new questions as to what extent U.S. citizens’ data could be caught in the fray.

( PHOTOS: Pols, pundits weigh in on NSA report)

The White House has insisted it’s followed the law, emphasizing it has the appropriate checks in place. And Obama, after weeks of criticism, addressed the matter at the top of a news conference last Friday, promising reforms to a system that many privacy hawks believe has become a rubber stamp for government snooping.

Frustration reached a boiling point on Capitol Hill last month after Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) launched an effort to defund the NSA’s phone-records program — an amendment, almost entirely symbolic in nature, that attracted broad bipartisan support. It ultimately failed, but the congressman’s move set the stage for a fierce fight that’s now evolved beyond the confines of Washington.

It’s even touched Fitzpatrick’s home base, the economically stratified 8th District of Pennsylvania. Unemployment reached about 7 percent in Bucks County this summer, and jobs and health care still trump all else. But at a town hall in Lower Salford last weekend and a telephone town hall this summer, Fitzpatrick said he found himself diverting from those key issues briefly to answer at least a few NSA questions.

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“There are many issues the American people are concerned about, privacy chief among them. And while it may not come up at every town hall, it is, I believe, based on conversations with my constituents, always on their minds,” Fitzpatrick told POLITICO last week, just after speaking at a local Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce event dominated not by surveillance but by spending, transportation and health care.

In San Jose, Calif., meanwhile, Lofgren fielded a question during a telephone town hall this month from a local voter who wanted to know why, exactly, Amash’s amendment had failed — because it had been “an incomplete idea or … because by and large your colleagues think it’s OK to spy on us?”

Lofgren responded that Amash’s effort “wasn’t as well-written as it might have been,” though she stressed the importance of transparency and oversight even as the government scours the globe for terrorists. Lofgren voted for the amendment.

Activists with Demand Progress and similar groups raised their surveillance qualms at a town hall held Tuesday by Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee. And a small group of protestors appeared to disrupt Van Hollen’s recent August gathering, an event focused on climate change in Silver Spring, Md. The tiny activist cohort carried signs emblazoned, “VAN HOLLEN WRONG ON NSA: Restore the 4th!” The Democratic congressman voted against the so-called Amash amendment because it wasn’t “the most comprehensive and effective” approach, according to a spokeswoman, who added Van Hollen does support “rewriting these laws.”

Holt, meanwhile, went as far as to invite Greenwald to appear by video at a July campaign event. But the congressman’s “Geek Out Live” discussion experienced technical difficulties, so Holt instead read a supportive statement provided by Greenwald. Holt lost New Jersey’s Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday.

Entering the August recess, historically a hotbed for once-latent political sentiment, members of Congress had been prepared precisely to deal with the worst-case scenario.

The foremost congressional supporters of the NSA long have been playing defense on Capitol Hill. At one point, though, agency allies invited the NSA’s leader, Gen. Keith Alexander, to brief lawmakers “in advance of the August district work period,” according to an invite sent to Democrats last month and obtained by POLITICO.

Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, hosted his party’s session. He stressed the meeting wasn’t focused on teaching members how to fend off angry voters. The point, Ruppersberger said, was to “get the facts from the source so that there’s not false information.”

A defender of the NSA’s work, the congressman added, “Our role is to educate; it’s not about us vs. them.”

The activist set, however, still hopes to catalyze the conversation while lawmakers are away.

“Every summer, we organize constituents going to local congressional offices,” said Josh Levy, the Internet campaign director of Free Press, noting the emphasis this year is “the NSA issue.” He said he expects a dozen meetings — personal discussions, not fiery town halls — before the end of the August break.

On the Free Press target list: Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the leader of the Judiciary Committee and an instrumental player if there’s ever to be reform of the nation’s intelligence statutes. Free Press also is hoping to hear from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who Levy said “may be swayable based on actual meetings with actual constituents.” In both cases, though, Levy cautioned the meetings hadn’t been finalized.

Taking a more aggressive approach is Restore the Fourth, a splintered coalition of activists that made noise earlier this summer by helping to organize a privacy-minded protest of Pelosi. She had voted against Amash’s amendment targeting the NSA and by some accounts played an active role in helping to defeat it.

“One thing that’s going to be really important for us is setting the tone. With the health care [town halls], it wasn’t always the most civil approach. You’re not going to see as much of that,” said group co-founder Ben Doernberg in New York City, promising more to come.

Broadly speaking, however, he added: “Members of Congress should absolutely expect that if they don’t address the NSA issue, it’s going to be brought up to them.”

In some cases, that’s already happening.

Fears that the government might be encroaching on Americans’ privacy came up during at least one Facebook town hall held for Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.). Members of Restore the Fourth earlier in July descended on a local New York office of Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks, who voted against the Amash measure. And Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) proactively held an entire telephone town hall on July 25 focused on his “recent NSA votes,” according to the invite. Woodall opposed the effort defunding the NSA.

In many ways, the battle is only beginning on Capitol Hill. It’s one thing for the House to vote on a symbolic amendment that could deprive the NSA of some funding. It’s entirely another thing to commit to the much more difficult, nuanced, unsexy task of rewriting decades of intelligence and surveillance laws.

“We’re reaching out and listening to members,” said Ruppersberger, suggesting on the horizon might be debate on whether the private sector, rather than the NSA, should be “holding the database” — and how, exactly, judges on the ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are chosen.

That body, which approves the NSA’s secret and foreign counter-terrorism operations, also has been targeted for reform by the likes of Blumenthal and other Democratic leaders. Obama last week also backed limited reforms to the court that would create a public defender of sorts arguing from a civil-liberties perspective.

The momentum at least ensures the debate will play out as members continue to tiptoe through a fractious, emotional town-hall season. At one moment in Lofgren’s tele-town hall last Wednesday, the congresswoman’s unnamed, privacy-minded questioner had inquired as to what, exactly, she could do to “communicate my displeasure” on the distant topic of digital surveillance, then “work to effect positive change.”

Replied Lofgren: “You’re telling me what you think, and I’ll remember it.”