Boston Globe: Whatever bill passes, mass collection of phone records will end

By Jonathan Weisman and Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times / The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON — The fractious debate over restarting the government’s sweeping surveillance program is expected to reach its final Senate showdown on Tuesday, when defense hawks make an urgent appeal to preserve more power for security agencies to gain access to Americans’ phone records.

But if the hawks prevail and push too far, many members of the House said they would reject the Senate approach, meaning that the surveillance program would remain largely blacked out until a compromise was reached. The program lapsed at 12:01 a.m. on Monday because opponents of surveillance refused to extend it through the legislative fight.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, and an ally, Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, the Intelligence Committee chairman, plan one last attempt to amend the USA Freedom Act, which the House passed and which both senators once denounced as an impediment to national security.

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