Daines: Proposed NSA Reforms "Fall Woefully Short" in Protecting Montana's Civil Liberties

Press Release

The House Intelligence Committee and the Obama administration's proposed reforms to the National Security Agency's mass data collection program "fall woefully short of providing needed protections for Montanans' civil liberties," Representative Steve Daines stated today.

This week, the House Intelligence Committee and President Obama will introduce separate proposals addressing the NSA's bulk meta-data program. Daines, an original co-sponsor of the USA Freedom Act, called the reforms inadequate and reaffirmed his call for a complete end to the forced blanket collection of Americans' telephone records for dragnet intelligence purposes.

"The proposals released today by President Obama and the House Intelligence Committee fall woefully short of providing needed protections for Montanans' civil liberties," Daines stated."The only way to fully protect Montanans' privacy and constitutional rights from the NSA's overreach is to completely stop the forced collection of Montanans' personal information. I will keep fighting for real reforms that fully protect Montanans' Fourth Amendment Rights and put an end to the federal government's compulsory collection of Montanans' personal information."

Daines has been a vocal advocate for ending the NSA's bulk meta-data program and working toward reforms that increase NSA transparency and accountability.

In November, Daines helped introduce H.R. 3361, the USA Freedom Act, which increases transparency, protects Americans from bulk collection of their communications records and requires the government to more aggressively filter and discard information about Americans accidentally collected through PRISM and related programs.

Earlier this year, Congressman Daines supported an amendment to the 2014 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, introduced by Congressman Justin Amash (R-Mich.), which called for the end of NSA's blanket collection of Americans' telephone records by authorizing the FISA court to order the production of business records and other "tangible items" that pertain only to a person under an authorized counterterrorism investigation.

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