US House rejects bid to curb NSA data collection

The US spy program vacuuming up vast amounts of electronic communications today survived the first legislative attempt to curb the data gathering since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed details of its scope.

The US House of Representatives voted 217-205 to defeat an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would have limited the National Security Agency's ability to collect electronic information, including phone call records.

The White House and senior intelligence officials opposed the amendment, which had been prompted by Snowden's revelations. Snowden, a fugitive from the United States, has been holed up at a Moscow airport for the past month unable to secure asylum.

The House later approved the defense appropriations bill, which included nearly US$600 billion in Pentagon spending for the 2014 fiscal year, including the costs of the Afghanistan war.

Republican Representative Tom Cotton, who endorsed the NSA program, described the "metadata" being collected as essentially a five-column spreadsheet containing the number called, the number of the caller, the date, the time and the duration of call.

"This program has stopped dozens of terrorist attacks," Cotton said. "That means it has saved untold American lives. This amendment ... does not limit the program, it does not modify it, it does not constrain the program, it ends the program. It blows it up."

Cotton, a former Army captain who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said a comprehensive set of phone call records was needed in order for the program to work.

"If you want to search for a needle in a haystack, you have to have the haystack. This (amendment) takes a leaf-blower and blows away they entire haystack. You will not have this program if this amendment passes."

'Simply wrong'

Supporters of the amendment said the fundamental issue was whether the US government had the right to collect and retain the personal communications data of American citizens.

"Government's gone too far in the name of security," said Representative Ted Poe, a Texas Republican. "Rein in government invasion, no more dragnet operations, get a specific warrant based on probable cause or stay out of our lives."

Representative Joe Barton, another Texas Republican, said the issue was not whether the NSA was sincere or careful in collecting data for use in anti-terrorism operations.

"It is (about) whether they have the right to collect the data in the first place on every phone call on every American every day," he said, noting that the law only allowed collection of relevant data. "In the NSA's interpretation of that, relevant is all data, all the time. That's simply wrong."

US spy chiefs, the White House and senior lawmakers responsible for overseeing intelligence agencies in Congress had joined ranks against the effort to curb the program.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, urged the House in a statement today to be wary of the "potential effect of limiting the intelligence community's capabilities" under the current law.

Clapper's statement came amid a push against the proposal by the White House and other senior intelligence officials, including Army General Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, who visited lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to warn about the implications of the amendment.