3 ms·

I may be wrong but didn't the House actually want to pass a rather strong version of the USA Freedom Act and then the House Committee drastically watered it dow

I may be wrong but didn't the House actually want to pass a rather strong version of the USA Freedom Act and then the House Committee drastically watered it down before sending it to the Senate? If that is true then it's most disappointing. Couldn't the House members have done something about that (just calling for a replacement of the Committee members, I guess?). The House Committee doing something like that sounds quite undemocratic, because the House Representatives passed a significantly different bill and then these "middle-men" intervened to kill it.

jdp23 11y ago
That's kind of what happened last year. Here's EFF's discussion from May 2014. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/eff-dismayed-houses-gutted-usa-freedom-act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/eff-dismayed-houses-gu... This year, the House Intelligence Committee worked with the administration, the intelligence community, and privacy advocates to come up with a compromise "USA Freedom" that everybody could live with. The House Judiciary Committee wanted to strengthen it but was concerned that would lead to the compromise falling apart and so didn't amend. The House then passed it, fairly overwhelmingly (although 50ish representatives who voted against wrote a letter to the Senate saying it should be stronger). All the amendments failed in the Senate, so they passed it as well. And yeah, it's really disappointing. The leadership in both the House and Senate has a huge amount of control over what bills make it to the floor, and they defer to the Intelligence committees (who tend to overwhelmingly support the NSA) so the cards are strongly stacked against reformers. And this isn't just a party-line issue; when the Democrats were in control, it was a very similar dynamic.

3 ms·

I may be wrong but didn't the House actually want to pass a rather strong version of the USA Freedom Act and then the House Committee drastically watered it dow

by higherpurpose 11y ago

jdp23 11y ago
That's kind of what happened last year. Here's EFF's discussion from May 2014. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/eff-dismayed-houses-gutted-usa-freedom-act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/eff-dismayed-houses-gu... This year, the House Intelligence Committee worked with the administration, the intelligence community, and privacy advocates to come up with a compromise "USA Freedom" that everybody could live with. The House Judiciary Committee wanted to strengthen it but was concerned that would lead to the compromise falling apart and so didn't amend. The House then passed it, fairly overwhelmingly (although 50ish representatives who voted against wrote a letter to the Senate saying it should be stronger). All the amendments failed in the Senate, so they passed it as well. And yeah, it's really disappointing. The leadership in both the House and Senate has a huge amount of control over what bills make it to the floor, and they defer to the Intelligence committees (who tend to overwhelmingly support the NSA) so the cards are strongly stacked against reformers. And this isn't just a party-line issue; when the Democrats were in control, it was a very similar dynamic.