House Fails To Limit NSA Spying

Yesterday, the House narrowly voted down an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that would have addressed recent NSA privacy abuses. As we all found out a few months ago, the NSA has been using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to indiscriminately amass cell phone data in bulk with meaningless oversight. The amendment, offered by Representative Amash, would have set limits on metadata collection - stating that Section 215 orders can only be used to collect information on those who are actually the subject of an investigation.

While the measure was defeated, we're proud that Congressman Michaud and Congresswoman Pingree both voted for the Amash Amendment. We are hopeful that Senator King will also stand up for privacy and work to reform the Patriot Act when the Senate is back in session in September.