Don't Worry, Spooks, DiFi'll Have Your Back

I would not be surprised if the Senate guts this:

Surveillance reform gained new congressional momentum as the US House of Representatives unexpectedly and overwhelmingly endorsed stripping a major post-9/11 power from the National Security Agency late Thursday night.

By a substantial and bipartisan margin, 293 to 121, representatives moved to ban the NSA from searching warrantlessly through its troves of ostensibly foreign communications content for Americans' data, the so-called "backdoor search" provision revealed in August by the Guardian thanks to leaks from Edward Snowden.

The move barring funds for warrantless searches "using an identifier of a United States person" came as an amendment added by Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, and Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, to the annual defense appropriations bill, considered a must-pass piece of legislation to fund the US military. Also banned is the NSA's ability, disclosed through the Snowden leaks, to secretly insert backdoor access to user data through hardware or communications services.

Every bit of pushback against the Surveillance State is welcome. But make no mistake, the defenders of All Things NSA are powerful in the Senate.