OTI Strongly Condemns Senator McConnell’s Proposal to Extend NSA Spy Program Without Any Reform

Washington, DC - Last night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr introduced a bill, S. 1035, that would extend for five more years the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that are set to expire on June 1st, including PATRIOT Section 215 which has been used to authorize the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. The bill is a straight reauthorization without any new reforms. The Open Technology Institute (OTI) strongly opposes this bill.

The following statement can be attributed to Kevin Bankston, OTI’s Policy Director:

“Senator McConnell’s bill to extend the expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act another five years—with no end to bulk collection, no new transparency or accountability measures, no reforms at all—is dangerous and shameful, ignoring the steady call for reform that has been building since the NSA’s mass surveillance programs were first revealed and that was reiterated just last month when the privacy community and the biggest Internet companies in America joined together to press for Congressional action. Senator McConnell’s proposal to rubber-stamp the NSA’s indiscriminate bulk surveillance of Americans is a slap in the face to the privacy community, the Internet industry, and the hundreds of lawmakers and countless voters who have demanded that Congress rein in government spying.

“When the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the President’s own Review Group have concluded that NSA’s bulk records program violates every American’s privacy without preventing terrorist attacks, when political leaders from both sides of the aisle along with the White House and the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department have all voiced support for reform, and when last year’s Congress was just inches away from passing a comprehensive reform bill, McConnell’s move to pass a clean reauthorization of PATRIOT section 215 represents the most cynical form of political brinksmanship. The Senate majority leader should be negotiating in good faith to pass meaningful surveillance reforms that protect our privacy while also preserving our national security, rather than spitting in the eye of those who have spent the past two years working to arrive at a reasonable compromise on reform.”