What’s law got to do with it?
by Tom Sullivan
Just because the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday ruled the NSA’s bulk collection of phone data illegal is no reason not to reauthorize it. Or so believe leading Senate Republicans:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday delivered a forceful defense of the National Security Agency’s mass-surveillance powers, a salvo that came just hours after a federal appeals court ruled the agency’s bulk collection of U.S. call records illegal.
McConnell criticized bipartisan legislation that would reform several aspects of NSA spying and effectively end the call-records program, and indicated he won’t budge from his position advocating a clean reauthorization of expiring surveillance authorities of the Patriot Act.
“[T]he wolves are at the door,” said freshman senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. A-rab Mooslims with long, curved knives, one supposes.
Not to be out-blustered, one of my senators dismissed privacy concerns:
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested that a discount card for a grocery store could be a greater threat to privacy than the NSA’s program.
“The NSA doesn’t sell data, your grocery story does,” he said. “But I don’t hear anyone complaining about the grocery store’s discount card, because you get a discount.”
Did Richard Burr just suggest we’d stop whining about being spied on if we just got another tax break?
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid returned fire:
Reid, meantime, called for an immediate vote on the USA Freedom Act, a surveillance reform bill advancing in the House that would end the telephone metadata program.
“Instead of bringing the bipartisan NSA reform bill up for a vote, Sen. McConnell is trying to force the Senate to extend the bulk data collection practices that were ruled illegal today,” he said. “It would be the height of irresponsibility to extend these illegal spying powers when we could pass bipartisan reform into law instead.”
Not that Reid’s bipartisan I Can’t Believe It’s Not Freedom Act would likely stop all domestic spying. Especially not since, as Dan Froomkin revealed, spy agencies have got a nifty, new gizmo for turning your phone conversations into searchable text. What’s not cool about that?
Except it’s the uncool actions the 2nd Circuit ruled illegal (but did not enjoin). As several people pointed out, you can’t really re-authorize a practice that was never authorized in the first place.