Policy changes are moving forward. Later today, the House of Representatives will vote on an amendment to a Department of Defense spending bill that would rescind any funding that could be used by the NSA to collect metadata on phone calls — one of the aspects of the agency's surveillance revealed by Snowden.

The amendment, proposed by Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, has already earned a stern condemnation from the White House. Which doesn't bode well for its adoption, of course; even if it passes the House — which, a representative of Amash's office told The Atlantic Wire, the representative expects will happen — it would then need to be maintained by the Senate and signed by the president. While the president didn't offer a veto threat, he probably doesn't yet feel that he needs to. On Tuesday, the leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee released a statement condemning the amendment, calling it "unwise."

Ninety days ago, a vote on the House floor to rescind funding for a national security program would have been unheard of — as would any of the other bills proposed in the House and Senate to increase openness about the FISA Court (which authorizes the surveillance tools) or to reform the laws used to justify them. As Adam Serwer outlined at MSNBC, privacy advocates sense a shift on Capitol Hill.

“I think reform is coming,” says Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California. “It’ll take time to determine exactly what form it will take, but I think there is an inexorable move towards greater transparency of the FISA Court and greater restructuring of the surveillance programs.”

Attitudes on surveillance are changing. Past members of that Court agree. Two former appointees have proposed changes to how the court works, primarily by introducing an advocate for the public into a process that currently involves a one-sided presentation by the government.

The public itself is increasingly skeptical of the Court's decisions. A poll conducted by Quinnipiac University earlier this month found that a majority of Americans thought the NSA's collection of phone metadata was too intrusive. A slightly smaller majority, 51 percent, nonetheless support that collection — which was down from a poll conducted by ABC in June. That poll put support at 58 percent.

In a poll released Wednesday, however, ABC's numbers have shifted significantly.

Americans overwhelmingly think the NSA surveillance efforts intrude on some citizens’ privacy rights – 74 percent say so – and about half, 49 percent, see the spying as an intrusion on their own personal privacy. In each case, though, some also see such intrusions as justified, 39 percent and 28 percent, respectively.



The net result is that 40 percent see the NSA activities not merely as intrusions on some Americans’ privacy rights, but as unjustified intrusions.

That percentage is ten points higher than the previous high recorded by ABC.