Midnight Expiration of USA PATRIOT Act Adds New Pressure for Surveillance Reform

Washington, DC — Almost two years to the day since Edward Snowden first revealed that the National Security Agency was collecting Americans’ phone records in bulk, Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act--the post-9/11 law being used as the legal basis for that program--is set to expire or “sunset” at midnight tonight. As a result, the Obama Administration is currently in the process of halting the phone records program, one of the many NSA mass surveillance programs exposed by Snowden and opposed by New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) as unnecessary, illegal, and contrary to Americans’ constitutional rights and everyone’s human rights.

OTI considers the sunset of Section 215 a major victory for opponents of mass surveillance, and hopes that the added pressure for surveillance reform created by the sunset will be leveraged to ensure that Congress quickly passes the USA FREEDOM Act (H.R. 2048) or an even stronger reform bill. USA FREEDOM would more comprehensively reform the law than the sunset of Section 215 alone, by prohibiting indiscriminate bulk collection of records not only under Section 215 but also under several other authorities, and by creating a variety of new transparency and accountability mechanisms to better prevent and detect spying abuses.

The sunset of Section 215 and two other spying authorities comes after the Senate, in a late-night session on Friday May 23rd and again tonight in a special weekend session, failed to move forward with either a straight renewal of the expiring provisions with no reforms, which the Open Technology Institute (OTI) opposes, or the USA FREEDOM Act (H.R. 2048) that would renew the law but with substantial reforms, which OTI supports and which the House of Representatives passed earlier this month by an overwhelming vote of 338 to 88.

Responsible for the expiration are the two Senators from Kentucky: Senate Majority Leader and mass surveillance supporter Mitch McConnell, whose attempts to block the USA FREEDOM Act took the Senate to the brink of the sunset deadline tonight, and mass surveillance opponent Senator Rand Paul, who opposes any measure that would reauthorize the expiring provisions and tonight was able to use the Senate’s procedural rules to prevent a last-minute vote on the USA FREEDOM Act. Although 77 Senators voted to end debate on USA FREEDOM, moving to a final vote on the bill tonight would have required unanimous consent, and Paul made clear he would refuse to consent. A vote on the bill is now expected later this week, although there may be new amendments offered to strengthen or weaken the bill’s reforms.

The following statement can be attributed to Kevin Bankston, Policy Director of New America’s Open Technology Institute:

“The sunset of PATRIOT Act Section 215 is a huge victory for those who have been fighting for the past two years to end the NSA’s bulk records program, but surveillance reformers shouldn’t break out the champagne yet: this is a narrow and likely temporary victory affecting only one aspect of the NSA’s spying authority. Now is the time to leverage this victory and ensure that Congress’ next step is the immediate passage of comprehensive reform legislation that is at least as strong as the USA FREEDOM Act, a bill that would ban the indiscriminate bulk collection of records not only under Section 215 but under a variety of other equally dangerous surveillance laws.

“By trying to delay passage of the USA FREEDOM Act using baseless arguments and fear-mongering, Senate Majority Leader McConnell played a losing game of chicken with those who were dedicated to ending bulk surveillance under the PATRIOT Act. But the sunset of Section 215 doesn’t mean the PATRIOT game is over; it’s just in overtime. There are still many in the Senate who would prefer to restore the expired PATRIOT Act provisions with no reforms at all or with sham reforms like those recently floated by Senators Burr and Feinstein. They will try to use the PATRIOT sunset as an excuse to water down the reforms in the USA FREEDOM Act, rather than recognizing the sunset as a reason to pursue even stronger reforms. OTI will continue to oppose such anti-reform proposals and push for new checks and balances on government spying that are at least as strong as those in USA FREEDOM Act, to ensure that tonight’s expiration of PATRIOT Section 215 is just the beginning--rather than the end--of the surveillance reform fight.”