Obama opposed to 'Amash amendment' as vote provides first test of congressional opinion on widespread NSA surveillance

White House braced for Congress vote on amendment to limit NSA collection

• Spencer Ackerman in Washington
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 July 2013 11.55 EDT

The Obama administration has portrayed the amendment as a reckless push to end what they consider a vital activity for national security. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty

The White House, Congress and the National Security Agency were bracing for a pivotal and unpredictable vote on Wednesday on the future of domestic mass surveillance in the US.
Debate was due to begin on Wednesday afternoon on an amendment tabled by congressman Justin Amash, a two-term libertarian Republican from Michigan, that would prevent the NSA from collecting bulk phone records on millions of Americans.
The vote on the amendment provides the first test of congressional opinion about the widespread NSA surveillance revealed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden and reported in the Guardian.
"This is the moment," said Michelle Richardson, a surveillance lobbyist for the ACLU.
Even if Amash's push to limit the NSA program fails, civil libertarian groups are preparing for a long battle, fueled by the belief that public opinion is finally tipping their way. On Thursday, a court in New York was due to hear preliminary legal arguments on a case brought by the ACLU that challenges the constitutionality of the NSA's mass collection of phone records.
It is the first court challenge since the Snowden revelations, and the ACLU believes it has a strong case because of the publication by the Guardian of a secret court order authorising the bulk collection of Verizon records, and because it is a Verizon customer.
In Washington on Wednesday, the Obama administration, the intelligence community, and its legislative allies were battling what has become known as the Amash amendment, portraying it as recklessly ending a longstanding, secret surveillance activity they consider vital for national security.
The legislative fight is the rare Washington battle that does not divide along partisan lines, but between civil liberties supporters in both parties and security hawks in both parties. Amash's bill has the support of the longtime liberal Democratic congressman John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee.
Late on Tuesday, the White House took the unusual step of vocally opposing the amendment ahead of the vote to include it in the annual Defense Department funding bill, calling it "not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process" and warning it would "hastily dismantle" a counterterrorism tool.
The statement, by White House press secretary Jay Carney, said: "We urge the House to reject the Amash amendment and instead move forward with an approach that appropriately takes into account the need for a reasoned review of what tools can best secure the nation."
Tuesday night's statement did not specify what that alternative might be; nor did the Obama administration ever publicly discuss or debate the extent of the bulk domestic phone records collection it maintained from the Bush administration before the Guardian revealed it last month.
"When's the last time a president put out an emergency statement against an amendment?" Amash tweeted late Tuesday night. "The Washington elites fear liberty. They fear you."
The senior members of the House intelligence committee, Republican chairman Mike Rogers and ranking Democratic Dutch Ruppersberger, urged their colleagues on Tuesday to reject the amendment. They pledged to "develop appropriate additional protections" for Americans' privacy over their phone records, but it was unclear on Wednesday what those would be.



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