Daines: President's NSA Reforms Fall Short

Press Release

Representative Steve Daines today released the following statement in response to the formal announcement of President Obama's proposed reforms to the National Security Agency's mass data collection program:

"As an original cosponsor of the USA Freedom Act, I have long called for comprehensive reforms to the NSA's mass data collection program that fully ensure Montanans' personal information and civil liberties are protected. I am pleased that President Obama has followed our lead and offered reforms that remove data storage from the government's hands, require court approval for accessing data, and refuse to impose any new retention requirements on phone companies. However, the President's reforms don't go far enough in fully protecting Montanans' personal information. I will keep fighting toward comprehensive reforms that fully protect Montanans' privacy and civil liberties."

Daines has been a vocal advocate for ending the NSA's bulk meta-data program and working toward reforms that increase NSA transparency and accountability.

Last year, Daines was one of the original sponsors of H.R. 3361, the USA Freedom Act, which increases transparency, protects Americans from bulk collection of their communications records and requires the government to more aggressively filter and discard information about Americans accidentally collected through PRISM and related programs.

Last year, Congressman Daines also supported an amendment to the 2014 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, introduced by Congressman 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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