Daines Votes to protect Montanans from NSA Spying
Press Release
Representative Steve Daines voted last night to protect Montanans from government spying and uphold the Constitution by barring warrantless collection of personal online information.
The bipartisan amendment added to the Defense appropriations bill prohibits the search of government databases for information on U.S. citizens without a warrant. It also cuts off funding for the CIA and NSA to build security vulnerabilities into commercial products that allow backdoor access to American's personal information.
"This amendment is one more step towards fully protecting Montanans' privacy and constitutional rights from NSA overreach and to completely stop the forced collection of Montanans' personal information," Daines said. "I will continue fighting for reforms that end the federal government's ability to review Americans' personal information without a warrant and protect our rights that are guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment."
The amendment offers similar protections to a provision that was stripped from the USA Freedom Act during last-minute deals that were made behind closed doors. Last month, Daines voted against the weakened USA Freedom Act because it did not go far enough to protect Montanans' privacy from government spying.
Daines has been a leader in protecting Montanans' privacy from federal overreach, fighting to end the NSA's mass-data collection program and introducing legislation to repeal federal REAL ID requirements.
This week, a bipartisan bill co-sponsored Daines that requires a search warrant from a judge to obtain private emails gained a majority of support in the House, increasing its chances of moving this year.
Last year, Daines also supported an amendment to the 2014 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, introduced by Representative 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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