Congressman Peters Pushes NSA Reforms Forward

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Scott Peters (CA-52) released the following statement after voting in favor of H.R. 3361, the “USA Freedom Act,” which modifies the authority of the National Security Agency (NSA) by ending its ability to collect and hold telephone metadata and other bulk data:

“Protecting our country is increasingly difficult and finding the right tools for our intelligence community to combat these threats has proved elusive in recent years. This bill is a bipartisan endeavor and is a step in the right direction. It makes significant advances toward protecting the privacy of American citizens by placing real, effective restrictions on government collection of data while putting reasonable burdens on the NSA before they can request information.”

The bill, which passed the House of Representatives 303-121, in addition to ending the NSA’s collection and storage of telephone metadata, requires the agency to get case-by-case approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court before requesting information and data. This proposal codifies the proposal put forth by President Obama earlier this spring and is the result of bipartisan discussions in Congress.

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