Story highlights
- The USA Freedom Act will ultimately end the bulk collection of millions of Americans' phone records
- The government will need a targeted warrant to obtain any phone metadata from phone companies
- The Senate vote came after a dramatic fight that saw Sen. Rand Paul adored and hated
Washington (CNN)The National Security Agency lost its authority to collect the phone records of millions of Americans, thanks to a new reform measure Congress passed on Tuesday. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on Tuesday evening.
It is the first piece of legislation to reform post 9/11 surveillance measures.
"It's historical," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, one of the leading architects of the reform efforts. "It's the first major overhaul of government surveillance in decades."
The weeks-long buildup to the final vote was full of drama.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul assailed the NSA in a 10-hour speech that roused civil libertarians around the country. He opposed both renewing the post 9/11-Patriot Act and the compromise measure -- that eventually passed -- known as the USA Freedom Act.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and defense hawks such as Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, had hoped to extend the more expansive Patriot Act, arguing it was essential for national security.
NSA spying: Has the government lost important tool? 02:40
The Republican infighting broke out during two weeks of debate on Capitol Hill and on the presidential campaign trail. And in part thanks to Paul's objections, certain counterterrorism provisions of the Patriot Act expired late Sunday amid warnings of national security consequences.
Obama welcomed the bill's final passage on Tuesday, but took a shot at those who held it up.
"After a needless delay and inexcusable lapse in important national security authorities, my administration will work expeditiously to ensure our national security professionals again have the full set of vital tools they need to continue protecting the country," he said in a statement.
Now that Obama has signed the bill, his administration will get to work getting the bulk metadata collection program back up and running during a six-month transition period to the new data collection system.
Senior administration officials described a two-step process: The first is the technical process -- essentially flipping the switches back and coordinating the databases of information stored by the government -- which takes a full day.
White House slams Senate over lapse in spy measures 03:28
The second is a legal process that could take longer. The government needs to make a filing with the special secretive court -- which has authorized the bulk metadata collection program since 2006 -- to verify that the metadata programs are legal under the new law.
It's unclear how long the process would take, but one official estimated the process could take three or four days.
Final passage of the compromise bill was in question until Tuesday, until the Senate successfully rebuffed with three amendments which could have thrown a wrench into the works.
The bill's passage is the culmination of efforts to reform the NSA that blossomed out of NSA leaker Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations.
"This is the most important surveillance reform bill since 1978, and its passage is an indication that Americans are no longer willing to give the intelligence agencies a blank check," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Congress had failed last year to pass a similar reform effort.
The legislation will require the government obtain a targeted warrant to collect phone metadata from telecommunications companies, makes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the FISA court) which reviews those warrant requests more transparent and reauthorizes Patriot Act provisions that lapsed early Monday.
The bill, though, passed over the strong and impassioned objections of security hawks in the Republican Party and from some former members of the intelligence community.
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
Former intelligence worker Edward Snowden revealed himself as the source of documents outlining a massive effort by the NSA to track cell phone calls and monitor the e-mail and Internet traffic of virtually all Americans. He says he just wanted the public to know what the government was doing. "Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded," he said. Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia after initially fleeing to Hong Kong. He has been charged with three felony counts, including violations of the U.S. Espionage Act, over the leaks.
Hide Caption
1 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
Military analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked the 7,000-page Pentagon Papers in 1971. The top-secret documents revealed that senior American leaders, including three presidents, knew the Vietnam War was an unwinnable, tragic quagmire. Further, they showed that the government had lied to Congress and the public about the progress of the war. Ellsberg surrendered to authorities and was charged as a spy. During his trial, the court learned that President Richard Nixon's administration had embarked on a campaign to discredit Ellsberg, illegally wiretapping him and breaking into his psychiatrist's office. All charges against him were dropped. Since then he has lived a relatively quiet life as a respected author and lecturer.
Hide Caption
2 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
Starting in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service studied untreated syphilis in black men who thought they were getting free health care. The patients weren't told of their affliction or sufficiently treated. Peter Buxtun, who worked for the Public Health Service, relayed information about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment to a reporter in 1972, which halted the 40-year study. His testimony at congressional hearings led to an overhaul of the Health, Education and Welfare rules concerning work with human subjects. A class-action lawsuit was settled out-of-court for $10 million, with the U.S. government promising free medical care to survivors and their families. Here, participants talk with a study coordinator.
Hide Caption
3 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
In 2005, retired deputy FBI director Mark Felt revealed himself to be the whistle-blower "Deep Throat" in the Watergate scandal. He anonymously assisted Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward with many of their stories about the Nixon administration's cover-up after the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The stories sparked a congressional investigation that eventually led to President Nixon's resignation in 1974. The Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage. Felt was convicted on unrelated conspiracy charges in 1980 and eventually pardoned by President Ronald Reagan before slipping into obscurity for the next quarter-century. He died in 2008 at age 95.
Hide Caption
4 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
Mordechai Vanunu, who worked as a technician at Israel's nuclear research facility, leaked information to a British newspaper and led nuclear arms analysts to conclude that Israel possessed a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its weapons program. An Israeli court convicted Vanunu in 1986 after Israeli intelligence agents captured him in Italy. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Since his release in 2004, he has been arrested on a number of occasions for violating terms of his parole.
Hide Caption
5 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
President Ronald Reagan addresses the media in 1987, months after the disclosure of the Iran-Contra affair. A secret operation carried out by an American military officer used proceeds from weapons sales to Iran to fund the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua and attempted to secure the release of U.S. hostages held by Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Mehdi Hashemi, an officer of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, leaked evidence of the deal to a Lebanese newspaper in 1986. Reagan's closest aides maintain he did not fully know, and only reluctantly came to accept, the circumstances of the operation.
Hide Caption
6 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
Tobacco industry executive Jeffrey Wigand issued a memo to his company in 1992 about his concerns regarding tobacco additives. He was fired in March 1993 and subsequently contacted by "60 Minutes" and persuaded to tell his story on CBS. He claimed that Brown & Williamson knowingly used additives that were carcinogenic and addictive and spent millions covering it up. He also testified in a landmark case in Mississippi that resulted in a $246 billion settlement from the tobacco industry. Wigand has received public recognition for his actions and continues to crusade against Big Tobacco. He was portrayed by Russell Crowe in the 1999 film "The Insider."
Hide Caption
7 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
For 10 years, Frederic Whitehurst complained mostly in vain about practices at the FBI's world-renowned crime lab, where he worked. His efforts eventually led to a 1997 investigation that found lab agents produced inaccurate and scientifically flawed testimony in major cases, including the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings. The Justice Department recommended major reforms but also criticized Whitehurst for "overstated and incendiary" allegations. He also faced disciplinary action for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into how some of his allegations were leaked to a magazine. After a yearlong paid suspension he left the bureau in 1998 with a settlement worth more than $1.16 million.
Hide Caption
8 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
FBI whistle-blower Coleen Rowley accused the bureau of hindering efforts to investigate a suspected terrorist that could have disrupted plans for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. In 2002 she fired off a 13-page letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller and flew to Washington to hand-deliver copies to two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and meet with committee staffers. The letter accused the bureau of deliberately undermining requests to look into Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in the United States of playing a role in the attacks. She testified in front of Congress and the 9/11 Commission about the FBI's mishandling of information. Rowley was selected as one of Time magazine's People of the Year in 2002, along with whistle-blowers Sherron Watkins of Enron and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom.
Hide Caption
9 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
Sherron Watkins, a former vice president at Enron, sent an anonymous letter to founder Kenneth Lay in 2001 warning him the company had accounting irregularities. The memo eventually reached the public and she later testified before Congress about her concerns and the company's wrongdoings. More than 4,000 Enron employees lost their jobs, and many also lost their life savings, when the energy giant declared bankruptcy in 2001. Investors lost billions of dollars. An investigation in 2002 found that Enron executives reaped millions of dollars from off-the-books partnerships and violated basic rules of accounting and ethics. Many were sentenced to prison for their roles in the Enron scandal.
Hide Caption
10 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
Cynthia Cooper and her team of auditors uncovered massive fraud at WorldCom in 2002. They found that the long-distance telephone provider had used $3.8 billion in questionable accounting entries to inflate earnings over the past five quarters. By the end of 2003, the total fraud was estimated to be $11 billion. The company filed for bankruptcy protection and five executives ended up in prison. Cooper started her own consulting firm and told her story in the book "Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower."
Hide Caption
11 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
In 2003, federal air marshal Robert MacLean anonymously tipped off an MSNBC reporter that because of budget concerns, the TSA was temporarily suspending missions that would require marshals to stay in hotels just days after they were briefed about a new "potential plot" to hijack U.S. airliners. The news caused an immediate uproar on Capitol Hill and the TSA retreated, withdrawing the scheduling cuts before they went into effect. MacLean was later investigated and fired for the unauthorized disclosure of "sensitive security information."
Hide Caption
12 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
Joe Darby is the whistle-blower behind the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq. He says he asked Army Reserve Spc. Charles Graner Jr. for photos from their travels so he could share them with family. Instead, he was given photos of prisoner abuse. Darby eventually alerted the U.S. military command, triggering an investigation and global outrage when the scandal came to light in 2004. Graner was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in the abuse. He was released in 2011 after serving 6½ years of his sentence. The military and members of Darby's own family ostracized him, calling him a traitor. Eventually he and his wife had to enter protective custody.
Hide Caption
13 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
The New York Times reported in 2005 that in the months after the September 11, 2001, attacks, President George W. Bush authorized the U.S. National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court warrant on people in the United States, including American citizens, suspected of communicating with al Qaeda members overseas. The Bush administration staunchly defended the controversial surveillance program. Russ Tice, an NSA insider, came forward as one of the anonymous sources used by the Times. He said he was concerned about alleged abuses and a lack of oversight. Here, President Bush participates in a conversation about the Patriot Act in Buffalo, New York, in April 2004.
Hide Caption
14 of 15
Photos: Notable leakers and whistle-blowers
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was convicted July 30 of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of classified documents and videos to WikiLeaks, and the counts against him included violations of the Espionage Act. He was found guilty of 20 of the 22 charges but acquitted of the most serious charge -- aiding the enemy. Manning is set to speak in his defense when he takes the stand during the sentencing phase of his court-martial on Wednesday, August 14. He could face up to 90 years in prison if the judge imposes the maximum sentence.
Hide Caption
15 of 15
But as the June 1 deadline to renew expiring provisions of the Patriot Act closed in, and as NSA reform advocates refused to budge in the face of charges of damaging national security, top Senate Republicans led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell eventually relented, giving way to pressure from House Republicans, the Obama administration and reform advocates in their own body.
McConnell and others realized that the USA Freedom Act, which passed the House three weeks earlier, was their only ticket to keeping counterterrorism provisions like data collection and roving wiretaps alive.
But while McConnell kept up his protest into the final moments leading up to the vote, his fellow Kentucky senator who antagonized his every move to reauthorize provisions of the Patriot Act noticeably avoided the spotlight on Tuesday.
Paul's weeks of staunch and unflinching opposition to reauthorizing the Patriot Act, and to the USA Freedom Act for not going far enough, ended Thursday with a simple "No" vote on that bill. He even relented in his plan to offer his own amendments to that piece of legislation and didn't make a prominent speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday.
Paul chalked up his efforts as a win, though, succeeding in leading the bulk metadata collection program to its expiration on Sunday night.