This page contains bill sponsorships in the Senate and House. Bill sponsorships indicate the topics that legislators are most interested in, and spend the most time on.

14-S1599 on Oct 29, 2013

• Amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to require that the records sought pertain to an individual in contact with a foreign power.
• Amends the USA PATRIOT Act to minimize the acquisition and retention of information and to prohibit its unauthorized dissemination.
• Imposes additional requirements on the authorized use of pen registers and trap and trace devices (devices for recording incoming and outgoing telephone numbers).
• Prohibits the searching of collections of communications of US persons.

  Opponent's argument against (Electronic Frontier Foundation): The bill only addresses a small portion of the problems created by NSA spying. It does not touch problems like NSA programs to sabotage encryption standards; it does not effectively tackle the issue of collecting information on people outside of the US; and it doesn't address the authority that the government is supposedly using to tap the data links between service provider data centers, such as those owned by Google and Yahoo. The bill also does not address excessive secrecy; it won't deal with the major over-classification issues or the state secrets privilege.

  Opponent's argument against (J. Kirk Wiebe, former NSA Senior Intelligence Analyst interview with TheRealNews.com): It's window dressing. Stopping bulk collection is a good step, but the only thing that's going to fix this is direct access into NSA's databases by an independent group of hackers, techie types, people like Snowden who know how to get into a network and look at things and verify that the data they're collecting and what they're doing with it complies with the Constitution. The NSA has essentially operated illegally--unconstitutionally--for 60% of its existence.

  Also see the related House bill H.3361.

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  Participating counts on VoteMatch question 24. Scores: -2=Strongly oppose; -1=Oppose; 0=neutral; 1=Support; 2=Strongly support.
  • Topic: Homeland Security
  • Headline: End bulk data collection under USA PATRIOT Act (Score: 2)
  • Headline 2: Sponsored ending bulk data collection under USA PATRIOT Act (Score: 2)
    
    
  • Key for participation codes:
  • Sponsorships: p=sponsored; o=co-sponsored; s=signed
  • Memberships: c=chair; m=member; e=endorsed; f=profiled; s=scored
  • Resolutions: i=introduced; w=wrote; a=adopted
  • Cases: w=wrote; j=joined; d=dissented; c=concurred
  • Surveys: '+' supports; '-' opposes.
  
  
  

  Democrats participating in 14-S1599
  Tammy Baldwin	s1o	WI Democratic Challenger	Oct 29, 2013
  Mark Begich	s1o	AK Democratic Jr Senator	Oct 29, 2013
  Richard Blumenthal	s1o	CT Democratic Sr Senator	Oct 29, 2013
  Richard Durbin	s1o	IL Democratic Sr Senator	Oct 29, 2013
  Al Franken	s1o	MN Democrat/DFL Jr Senator	Jul 7, 2014
  Tom Harkin	s1o	IA Democratic Jr Senator (retiring 2014)	Dec 20, 2013
  Martin Heinrich	s1o	New Mexico Democrat (Senate run 2012)	Oct 29, 2013
  Mazie Hirono	s1o	Hawaii Democrat (Senate run 2012)	Oct 29, 2013
  Patrick Leahy	s2p	VT Democratic Sr Senator	Oct 29, 2013
  Ed Markey	s1o	MA Democratic Challenger	Oct 29, 2013
  Robert Menendez	s1o	New Jersey Democrat	Oct 29, 2013
  Jeff Merkley	s1o	OR Democratic Jr Senator	Oct 29, 2013
  Brian Schatz	s1o	HI Democratic Jr Senator Appointee	Oct 29, 2013
  Jon Tester	s1o	MT Democratic Jr Senator	Oct 29, 2013
  Mark Udall	s1o	CO Democratic Sr Senator; previously Representative	Oct 29, 2013
  Tom Udall	s1o	New Mexico Democrat (Senate 2008)	Oct 29, 2013
  John Walsh	s1o	MT Democratic Senate Challenger	Feb 12, 2014
  Elizabeth Warren	s1o	MA Democratic Challenger	Oct 29, 2013
  Ron Wyden	s1o	OR Democratic Sr Senator	Nov 5, 2013

  
  
  

  Republicans participating in 14-S1599
  Dean Heller	s1o	Nevada Republican (Resigned 2011)	Oct 29, 2013
  Mike Lee	s1o	UT Republican Jr Senator	Oct 29, 2013
  Lisa Murkowski	s1o	AK Republican Sr Senator	Oct 29, 2013

  
  
  

  Independents participating in 14-S1599

  
  
  

  Total recorded by OnTheIssues:

  Democrats: 19 Republicans: 3 Independents: 0