A cloture vote in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday night failed to get the necessary 60 votes needed to move forward the USA Freedom Act, sending the bill, which privacy and civil liberties advocates called the strongest attempt yet to rein in National Security Agency surveillance in the wake of revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden, down in failure.
Writing for The Intercept, Dan Froomkin described how Republican members of Senate used hype and the rhetoric of fear surrounding foreign terrorist organizations in their ultimately successful bid to kill the legislation:
In response to the failed cloture vote, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which had cautiously endorsed Leahy’s bill, released this statement:
At the Huffington Post, Ryan Grim and Matt Sledge report on how Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a champion of libertarians, refused to vote in favor of the measure despite its strengths in curbing some of the worst practices used by the NSA to spy on American citizens unimpeded.