A policy rider that would expand the type of information the FBI can collect without a warrant has attached itself to legislation for the third time in less than a month.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) introduced the measure on Monday night as an amendment to the Commerce and Justice Departments’ spending bill, which the upper chamber is considering this week.
If enacted, federal authorities would be able to use so-called National Security Letters (NSL) to collect internet browsing history, IP addresses and other sensitive online metadata without a probable cause warrant. FBI Director James Comey has claimed that the policy tweak merely fixes a “typo” in the law that already allows authorities to collect certain transactional records without a warrant.
“It would save us a tremendous amount of work hours if we could fix that, without any compromise to anyone’s civil liberties or civil rights,” Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. He noted that the feds would merely be collecting “transaction records” and not content.
McConnell’s gambit marks the latest maneuvering to get the FBI’s proposal passed out of the Senate.
The measure was previously affixed to an intelligence authorization bill passed out committee in early June, despite opposition from several Democratic Senators on the panel.
“I do not believe it is appropriate to give the government broad new surveillance authorities just because FBI officials do not like doing paperwork,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a committee report on the legislation.
Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) also blasted the proposal. In a separate statement, the duo said it would grant “broad new authority” that would allow the feds to collect “far more revealing” information such as cell site location data, and emails sent and received.
The surveillance expansion rider has also hobbled enormously popular email privacy legislation. An update to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act that would install warrant requirements on six-month-old emails passed the House 419-0 in April. But it stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee this month after Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) moved to attach the NSL rider on to that bill, too.
Cornyn was criticized for his efforts by a fellow GOP, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). “If its so necessary and so non-controversial, find another vehicle or let it run on its own,” Lee said of Cornyn’s amendment.
A vote on the latest incarnation of the surveillance measure could come as early as Wednesday.
The upper chamber has already considered a number of amendments this week to the justice and commerce spending bills.
On Monday, the Senate defeated four gun control proposals that would have expanded background checks for firearms purchases and restricted access to guns for those who are listed in the government’s terrorist screening databases. The amendments received renewed support from Democrats after the June 12 mass shooting in Orlando, Fla.
