Senate fight looms as law allowing NSA to collect Americans’ phone data set to expire

A major supporter of the National Security Agency’s anti-terrorism surveillance program, which allows the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, is pushing for an extension of the program, setting up a battle with critics who argue that Congress must fix the current law or let it expire.
"This has been a very important part of our effort to defend the homeland since 9/11," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday while defending the program in an interview on ABC's “This Week.” "We know that the terrorists overseas are trying to recruit people in our country to commit atrocities in our country."
McConnell, R-Ky., introduced a bill Thursday night that would temporarily renew the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for two months.
The renewal would buy time for the Senate to debate, specifically, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which authorizes the government to collect personal records without a warrant and has been the target of controversy since NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that it was being used by the NSA to capture and retain millions of Americans’ personal phone records.
The provisions are currently scheduled to sunset on June 1.
Meanwhile, the House on Wednesday passed the USA Freedom Act, a bipartisan bill lawmakers said would end the NSA’s ability to use Section 215 for that type of data collection. Instead, it would allow private telecom companies to keep the records. Federal law enforcement would have to get a court order proving a link to a specific criminal investigation to collect such phone record data, and must use specific search terms to get permission to pore through the information.

"This has been a very important part of our effort to defend the homeland since 9/11."
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

The bill, sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., passed by a margin of 338-88.
This sets up a fight in the Senate with McConnell, who supports renewing the Patriot Act provisions, including Section 215, with no changes. He is supported by a number of senators, including Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., both of whom have publicly advocated a “clean” renewal of the Patriot Act. Still, McConnell is opposed by a number of Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republican members of the majority, like Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who McConnell is supporting for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, has said he will filibuster any attempt to renew the act without reforms.
“We are going to demand amendments and we are going to make sure the American people know that some of us at least are opposed to unlawful searches," Paul told The New Hampshire Union Leader this week.
"Everybody threatens to filibuster. We'll see what happens," McConnell said Sunday on “This Week.” "But we're talking about the security of the country here. This is no small matter."

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In this June 6, 2013, file photo, a sign stands outside the National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Md. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Extra time to debate it might be necessary, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, acknowledged to reporters on Thursday. The Senate also is grappling with Congress’ say in the Iran nuclear deal, and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) fast track trade deal – two things McConnell has said need to be settled first, plus the authorization of highway funding.
“There’s a range of views” on the NSA,” Cornyn said, according to The Hill newspaper. “I don’t know how you get all that done plus (the highway bill) before we break.”  The Senate is scheduled to go on break from May 23-31, according to its calendar.
The phone data collection program had been a secret until Snowden leaked documents proving its existence nearly two years ago. In that leak to the press, he showed that the NSA had been collecting millions of phone records since 9/11 – not the conversations, but dates, times and numbers – for the purpose of surveillance. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the program illegal on May 7, saying, "the [Patriot Act provisions] have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here.”
The court did not go so far as to halt the program with an injunction, but left it to Congress to pass reforms.
Given these legal implications, and the fact the House is overwhelmingly in favor of changes, McConnell’s “clean” alternative and his attempt to delay matters will likely hit resistance, said Steve Vladeck, an American University law professor who teaches constitutional and national security law.
“If the Senate doesn’t pass something close to the USA Freedom Act, then all hell breaks loose,” he predicted in an interview with FoxNews.com. "The June 1 deadline is looming, it’s just a couple of legislative days away.”
A tougher version of the USA Freedom Act passed the House last year, but failed to get the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to proceed to a floor debate.
But even the USA Freedom Act has its own detractors, mainly critics who believe Section 215, which allows the government to secretly comb personal records without warrant, should expire. While the American Civil Liberties Union has not endorsed or opposed a specific set of reforms, it warned House members ahead of its vote that the Sensenbrenner/Conyers bill is lacking a number of privacy protections and includes loopholes through which the government could still engage in bulk surveillance.
“Though an improvement over the status quo in some respects, the USA Freedom Act does not go far enough to rein in NSA abuses,” the ACLU said in a May 12 letter to the House. In actuality, critics suggest, the USA Freedom Act may serve to codify the very activities the court was warning against.  
Fox contributor Judge Napolitano agreed, calling it a Band-Aid, that “would actually legitimize all spying, all the time, on all of us in ways that the Patriot Act fails to do.”
Vladeck said the critics have a point. "There is no question that the USA Freedom Act is better than the McConnell [clean] bill, but I also think there is no question that the act that passed the House doesn’t go nearly as far as other reform bills that have been introduced,” he said. “The question is now: What kind of compromise is everyone going to be happy with?”
Libertarians say they won't be happy until all of Section 215, if not the entire Patriot Act, is scrapped entirely. They say its sweeping law-enforcement powers have tipped the balance against innocent Americans' civil liberties without providing a clear rationale for their usefulness in terror investigations.
“It’s your classic conundrum, whether the Congress should swallow the bad in order to get the good. It’s time to get beyond fighting in the weeds here,” said Jacob Hornberger, president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, in an interview with FoxNews.com.
“It’s time for the American people to look beyond that and say, ‘Is this what we want for a free society? Do we really need a NSA? Do we even need a Patriot Act?’ My argument is we don’t. These are antithetical to a free society.”
The Hill reported Thursday that supporters of the USA Freedom Act are already lining up against any temporary extension of the Patriot Act on the House side, which would be required in order to thwart the June 1 deadline.
Nevertheless, there are national security hawks in the Senate who will likely embrace the extra room for debate, especially if they need more time to get members on board to pass a clean renewal. “Contrary to irresponsible rumors, the [bulk surveillance] program is lawful, carefully monitored, and protects personal privacy,” said Sen. Cotton and Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., in an Op-Ed on Friday.  
“As members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, we have carefully studied this program and are convinced that it’s an integral tool in our fight against terrorism.”

ISIS claims to have taken Ramadi, Pentagon admits terror group 'has the advantage'

The Islamic State terror group claimed that it had seized control of the city of Ramadi Sunday in what would be the biggest loss for Iraqi forces since the beginning of U.S. airstrikes targeting extremists this past September.
The Associated Press reported that Iraqi forces had dropped their weapons and fled their positions in an apparent reprise of the fall of Mosul, which catapulted the group commonly known as ISIS into the international spotlight last summer.
Bodies, some burned, littered the streets as local officials reported the militants carried out mass killings of Iraqi security forces and civilians. Online video showed Humvees, trucks and other equipment speeding out of Ramadi, with soldiers gripping onto their sides.
Muhannad Haimour, a spokesman for the provincial governor of Anbar, said Monday that around 500 civilians and Iraqi soldiers are estimated to have been killed over the last few days, while approximately 8,000 had fled the city. He said the figure is in addition to the enormous exodus in April, when the U.N. said as many as 114,000 residents fled from Ramadi and surrounding villages at the height of the violence.
"Ramadi has fallen," Haimour had told AP Sunday. "The city was completely taken. ... The military is fleeing."
"Ramadi has been contested since last summer and ISIL now has the advantage," Navy Commander Elissa Smith, using another acronym for ISIS, said late Sunday. "We have always known the fight would be long and difficult, particularly in Anbar [province]."

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Smith said that the U.S. would continue to support Iraqi forces with airstrikes and added, "The loss of Ramadi does not mean the tide of the campaign has turned, and we have long said that there would be ebbs and flows on the battlefield. If lost, that just means the coalition will have to support Iraqi forces to take it back later."
Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in South Korea, called Ramadi a "target of opportunity" for extremists, but said he was confident that ISIS' gains could be reversed in the coming days. Kerry also said that he's long said the fight against the militant group would be a long one, and that it would be tough in the Anbar province of western Iraq where Iraqi security forces are not built up.
The U.S.-led coalition said Sunday it had conducted seven airstrikes in Ramadi in the last 24 hours. "It is a fluid and contested battlefield," said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. "We are supporting (the Iraqis) with air power."
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered security forces not to abandon their posts across Anbar province, apparently fearing the extremists could capture the entirety of the vast Sunni province that saw intense fighting after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the country to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.
Sunday's retreat recalled the collapse of Iraqi security forces last summer in the face of the Islamic State group's blitz into Iraq that saw it capture a third of the country, where it has declared a caliphate, or Islamic State. It also calls into question the Obama administration's hopes of relying solely on airstrikes to support the Iraqi forces in expelling the extremists.
Earlier Sunday, al-Abadi ordered Shiite militias to prepare to go into the Sunni-dominated province, ignoring U.S. concerns their presence could spark sectarian bloodshed. By late Sunday, a large number of Shiite militiamen had arrived at a military base near Ramadi, apparently to participate in a possible counter-offensive, said the head of the Anbar provincial council, Sabah Karhout.
"We welcome any group, including Shiite militias, to come and help us in liberating the city from the militants. What happened today is a big loss caused by lack of good planning by the military," a Sunni tribal leader, Naeem al-Gauoud, told the Associated Press.
He said many tribal fighters died trying to defend the city, and bodies, some charred, were strewn in the streets, while others had been thrown in the Euphrates River. Ramadi mayor Dalaf al-Kubaisi said that more than 250 civilians and security forces were killed over the past two days, including dozens of police and other government supporters shot dead in the streets or their homes, along with their wives, children and other family members.
The final push by the extremists began early Sunday with four nearly simultaneous bombings that targeted police officers defending the Malaab district in southern Ramadi, a pocket of the city still under Iraqi government control, killing at least 10 police and wounding 15, authorities said. Among the dead was Col. Muthana al-Jabri, the chief of the Malaab police station, they said.
Later, three suicide bombers drove their explosive-laden cars into the gate of the Anbar Operation Command, the military headquarters for the province, killing at least five soldiers and wounding 12, authorities said.
Fierce clashes erupted between security forces and ISIS militants following the attacks, and the extremists later seized Malaab after government forces withdrew, with the militants saying they controlled the military headquarters.
A police officer who was stationed at the headquarters said retreating Iraqi forces left behind about 30 army vehicles and weapons that included artillery and assault rifles. He said some two dozen police officers disappeared during the fighting.
The officer and other officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to talk to journalists.
On a militant website frequented by ISIS members, a message from the group claimed its fighters held the 8th Brigade army base, as well as tanks and missile launchers left behind by fleeing soldiers. The message could not be independently verified by the AP, but it was similar to others released by the group and was spread online by known supporters of the extremists.
Last week, the militants swept through Ramadi, seizing the main government headquarters and other key parts of the city. It marked a major setback for the Iraqi government's efforts to drive the militants out of areas they seized last year. Previous estimates suggested ISIS held at least 65 percent of Anbar.
Backed by the U.S.-led airstrikes, Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters have made gains against ISIS, including capturing the northern city of Tikrit. But progress has been slow in Anbar, a Sunni province where anger at the Shiite-led government runs deep and where U.S. forces struggled for years to beat back a potent insurgency. American soldiers fought some of their bloodiest battles since Vietnam on the streets of Ramadi and Fallujah.
U.S. troops were able to improve security in the province starting in 2006 when powerful tribes and former militants allied with American forces and turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq, a precursor to ISIS.
But the so-called Sunni Awakening movement waned in the years after U.S. troops withdrew at the end of 2011, with the fighters complaining of neglect and distrust from the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

Immigration courts reportedly have 445,000 pending cases

The already backlogged federal immigration courts have reportedly reached an all-time high with more than 445,000 pending cases.
The Los Angeles Times, citing the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, reports that as of April, the backlog hit 445,706, which is a nearly 30 percent increase since Oct. 1, 2013.
Immigration courts have been overwhelmed since the influx of more than 68,500 unaccompanied children and about as many family units crossing the southern border, most of them from Central America.
During the surge, unaccompanied children’s cases were expedited in courts in Los Angeles and other large cities.
Despite the surge, the unaccompanied children’s cases only make up 16 percent of the total as of April. The juvenile case backlog is still 68 percent larger than it was last June, when the backlog reached 41,641 juvenile cases, the Times reports.
The backlogged cases for Central Americans have skyrocketed. Guatemalans’ cases are up 63 percent, 92 percent for Salvadorians and 143 percent for Hondurans.
The report found that California, Texas and New York led the nation with the largest immigration backlogs, followed by Florida and New Jersey.
Louis Ruffino told the Los Angeles Times that more than 233 judges across the nation are heading immigration cases and 68 more are going to be hired. Ruffino also said that Miami judges have also been hearing Texas immigration cases via videoconferencing.
Denise Gilman, who directs an immigration clinic at the University of Texas law school in Austin, told the paper that “there is no ability of the court to keep up. We really are in a vicious cycle.”
Gilman has a Honduran client who suffered a heart attack recently after waiting two years for his asylum case to be heard.
Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the San Antonio-based legal advocacy group Raices, says the federal government was not addressing the cases that make up a majority of the backlog after it expedited unaccompanied minors’ cases.
 “We see people coming into our office every day whose lives are being negatively impacted by this,” Ryan told the paper.
Some judges believe the backlog is expected to get worse.
San Francisco-based Judge Dana Leigh Marks told the Los Angeles Times that they’re “waiting for the tsunami to come.”
Marks said 100 immigrants judges were expected to retire this year alone. Many immigration judges handle more than 3,000 cases a year, which would push hearings back to 2019.

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California Senate contender Loretta Sanchez makes 'shocking' gesture at Dem convention

U.S. Senate candidate Loretta Sanchez started her campaign off on a rough note after a video surfaced showing her making a whooping cry in a reference to Native Americans dancing during an apparent joke during a California Democratic Party convention Saturday.
Sanchez’s rival, Attorney General Kamala Harris, called the gesture “shocking.”
The video was shared on social media Saturday. It shows Sanchez tapping her hand over her open mouth and making a whooping sound while speaking to a group of Indian-American delegates at the convention.
Sanchez made the gesture while talking about her confusion over whether a potential campaign support, who had referred himself as from the “Indian American community,” was Native American or South Asian descent.
Sanchez told reporters afterward that American Indians have a “great presence in our country and many of them are supporting our election.”
Harris, whose mother was an immigrant from India,” said, “There is no place for that in our public disclosure.”
The incident came during a convention in which the 2016 Senate race played out among speeches and partying. The two Democrats are leading contenders for the vacated seat left by retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Earlier, Harris defended her qualifications on foreign affairs and national defense after Sanchez had suggested she doesn't have the skills for the job in Washington.  
Harris told reporters that voters next year will determine who is qualified for the Senate seat, and her experience as a two-term attorney general and a former local prosecutor gave her the background she would need on Capitol Hill.  
"I feel certainly equipped to have a sense of what California needs and wants as it relates to many issues," Harris said. As a career prosecutor, "I know the stuff they do in Washington actually impacts California."
Sanchez entered the race Thursday and spent the day dashing to and from convention meetings, shaking dozens of hands and posing for snapshots. When she entered the race last week, Sanchez said that her long experience in defense and foreign affairs on Capitol Hill was essential in “perilous times,” drawing contrast with Harris.
Harris has targeted what she says is the dysfunction of Capitol Hill in her speeches. She never mentioned Sanchez, but the statements appeared to suggest that the congresswoman was part of the problem. Harris said that everywhere she travels as a candidate she is asked how she can “possibly get anything done” in paralyzed Beltway politics.
Speaking later with reporters, Harris pointed to her work along the U.S.-Mexico border on drug trafficking as state attorney general.  
The contest between the two high-profile Democrats has geographic, racial and political dimensions. Sanchez, 55, is Hispanic with a background in national defense issues and roots in Southern California. Over the years, she has belonged to a faction of moderate Democrats known as the Blue Dog Coalition. Harris, 50, a favorite of the party's left wing, is a career prosecutor from the San Francisco Bay Area whose father is black and mother is Indian.  
Sanchez, speaking to members of the party's Chicano Latino Caucus, said she wanted to appeal across the state's diverse population. "We will win, and we will win with a fabric of everybody," she said.

Son of fallen Colorado deputy gets father's patrol car

The son of a Colorado deputy killed in the line of duty owns his father’s patrol car thanks to rancher with a heart of gold.
Tanner Brownlee was quickly outbid when his father’s beat-up Dodge Charger was put up for auction Wednesday in Greeley, Colo.
“I was sitting there. I had a set amount that I was gonna do,” Brownlee told Fox & Friends Saturday. “As soon as it went past that, I was…I just kind of gave up hope.”
Brownlee watched local rancher Steve Wells purchase the vehicle with a whopping $60,000 bid, five times the car’s book value.
Then Wells did something incredible, Denver ABC reported.
Wells said, “Tanner, here’s your car,” and gave him the keys.
“I couldn’t even find words,” Brownlee said on Fox & Friends. “As soon as he handed me the keys I shut down and I couldn’t believe it.
“I got up. I shook his hand. I hugged him. I was just crying. I couldn’t find words to express it.”
Brownlee was 15 when his father was killed in 2010 after he and other officers pursued a suspected car thief into a subdivision after a high-speed chase. During the struggle the suspect grabbed Brownlee’s gun and shot the deputy three times, the Denver Post reported in 2011. Another deputy shot Brownlee’s killer.
Sam Brownlee was the first member of the Weld County Sheriff’s Office to die on the job in 70 years.
Brownlee and his colleagues put a lot of hard miles on the Charger. It had 147,000 on the odometer when it went up for auction. It was being sold to raise money for C.O.P.S., a fund for widows and orphans of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.
Tanner Brownlee started an online fundraising page to bid on the vehicle. He raised $3,000, hoping that would be enough. It wasn’t even close.
Wells turned out to be a man of few words after his good deed.
As he watched Brownlee get behind the wheel of the car, he declined an interview request saying he didn’t want to take away from the moment.
Brownlee said he and his brother Chase are going to use their father’s vehicle as a “cruising car.”
“I’m so excited,” he said. “I’m going to try to keep up on that car, keep it as long as I can.”

Asian groups file federal complaint against Harvard over admission practices

alliance of Asian American groups

An alliance of Asian American groups filed a federal complaint Friday against Harvard University, claiming that the school and other Ivy League institutions are using racial quotas to admit students other than high-scoring Asians.
More than 60 Chinese, Indian, Korean and Pakistani groups came together for the complaint, which was filed with the civil rights offices at the Justice and Education departments. The groups are calling for an investigation and say these schools need to stop using racial quotas or racial balancing in admission.
"We are seeking equal treatment regardless of race," said Chunyan Li, a professor and civil rights activist, who said they'd rather universities use income rather than race in affirmative action policies.
Harvard says its admissions approach has been found to be “fully compliant federal law.” Officials also say the number of Asian students admitted increased from 17.6 percent to 21 percent in the last decade.
"We will vigorously defend the right of Harvard, and other universities, to continue to seek the educational benefits that come from a class that is diverse on multiple dimensions," said Robert Iuliano, Harvard's general counsel.
Iuliano pointed to the Super Court’s landmark 1978 decision in Regents of University of California vs. Bakke, which upheld affirmative action and specifically cited Harvard’s admissions plan as a “legally sound approach” to admissions.
The federal suits say that Harvard and UNC rely on race-based affirmative action policies that impact admissions of high-achieving white and Asian American students. The Harvard lawsuit also alleges that the institution specifically curbs the number of Asian Americans it admits each year.
Yukong Zhao, who organized the groups for Friday's complaint, challenged Harvard to open its admission books to prove that Asians were not purposefully being put at a disadvantage. "We want to help this country move forward," Zhao said.
Other Asian American groups and officials also released statements supporting affirmative action, including two members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "Neither of us believes that any racial or ethnic group should be subjected to quotas," Commissioners Michael Yaki and Karen Narasaki said. "Nor do we believe that test scores alone entitle anyone to admission at Harvard. Students are more than their test scores and grades."

GOP has waited two years for info on IRS correspondence with Dem senators

Washington Republicans said this week that their requests to the IRS for correspondences between the agency and congressional Democrats remain unfulfilled after two years, raising questions about whether the Obama administration is trying to withhold information for a third-straight election cycle.
“Instead of holding the IRS accountable, Democrats are trying to cover-up their involvement in the IRS targeting scandal,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Andrea Bozek said Friday.
The group, which focuses on getting Republicans elected and reelected to the Senate, provided documents earlier this week showing 10 letters in which the IRS has asked for more time to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests since May 21, 2013.
"On January 14, 2015, I asked for more time to obtain the records you requested,” IRS tax law specialist Denise Higley wrote NRSC lawyer Megan Sowards on April 29. “I am still working on your request and need additional time.”
Higley also said she would contact the NRSC by July 6 if she needs more time.
IRS official Lois Lerner made public in early May 2013 that the agency during President Obama’s 2012 re-election bid had targeted Tea Party groups and other organizations with politically conservative sounding names when they applied for tax-exempt status.
Lerner, who ran the agency’s tax-exempt division, asserted her Fifth Amendment rights when called before Congress to testify about the matter.
She has since retired, and additional efforts by congressional Republicans and others to learn whether the upper reaches of the Obama administration ordered the targeting have been slowed because the hard drive on Lerner’s government computer crash, destroying hundreds or perhaps thousands of emails.  
Republicans and others have also speculated about whether the administration is stalling on providing information until Obama retires from office after the November 2016 elections.
Thursday will mark the second anniversary of the requests.
The agency could not be reached Saturday for additional comment.
The NRSC, which last year help Republicans win control of the Senate, historically focuses its manpower and money on defeating incumbent Democrats who appear vulnerable.
The group has specifically asked for records of correspondence between the IRS and Sen. Mike Bennett, a Democrat seeking a second full term next year in the swing state of Colorado.   
The NRSC is also looking for correspondence between the IRS and New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Others including North Carolina’s Kay Hagan and Alaska’s Mark Begich have already lost re-election bids. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry is also on the original list, but the Nevada Democrat is not seeking re-election next year.