WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) issued the following statement after a sweeping, bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives voted to approve the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015, a bill that would end the government’s dragnet collection of Americans’ data under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Lee recently introduced the legislation in the Senate with Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT).
“With the House’s passage of the USA FREEDOM Act today, the American people are one step closer to having their core civil liberties protected from unconstitutional government surveillance under the USA PATRIOT Act. The overwhelming, bipartisan majority in the House affirms last week’s unanimous decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that that the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk phone records collection program goes beyond what is authorized under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. Now, the Senate must act."
