Press Releases

Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (WA-01) today joined members of the House Judiciary Committee in cosponsoring bipartisan legislation to rein in the National Security Agency’s (NSA) domestic surveillance program and protect Americans’ privacy by creating greater transparency, oversight and accountability.

“Like most of the American public, I remain outraged and deeply troubled by reports of far-reaching and invasive government surveillance programs,” DelBene said. “Bulk collection of American communications records is a gross violation of our civil liberties. Congress must take action to rein in the government’s surveillance programs and end bulk data collection once and for all.”

The USA FREEDOM Act ends bulk data collection under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. The bill would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts and increase transparency by creating a panel of experts that will provide guidance to the courts on issues such as privacy and civil liberties, and by requiring all novel and significant FISA court opinions to be public. The bill also provides options for companies to publicly disclose information about requests they receive from the government, an important reform that DelBene lead the push for in 2014.

Last year, DelBene opposed a surveillance reform proposal after critical privacy and transparency provisions were weakened.

“The USA FREEDOM Act is a common-sense, bipartisan proposal that Congress must take action on in order to rein in our out of control surveillance programs,” DelBene said. “House leadership has two options – pass this bipartisan reform or allow the PATRIOT Act to expire on June 1, because a clean reauthorization is unacceptable.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has introduced a five-year reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, which the government has used to secretly obtain personal data from U.S. citizens. DelBene said McConnell’s bill is misguided and has little chance of becoming law.

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