With the passage of the USA Freedom Act, many hoped that we had seen the last of bulk collection of Americans’ telephone data, but government never gives up its power without a fight. So when the Obama administration asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to continue collecting data during the 180 day transition period authorized by USA Freedom, we were ready with a legal response.

FreedomWorks has joined the Sunlight Foundation and Demand Progress in publishing a coalition letter in support of the Massie amendment to stop warrantless spying on American citizens. The letter is signed by 26 organizations from across the political spectrum.

After sometimes-dramatic and often-tense several weeks, the USA Freedom Act finally passed the Senate. The act’s passage brings the government’s telephone data surveillance program under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act back from its brief retirement, but with reforms that stop its worst abuses. Although the USA Freedom Act was certainly not the level of reform that many had hoped for, it passage nevertheless sent a clear signal that the days of Congress simply rubber-stamping endless surveillance programs are over.

The Inspector General of the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed in a report released on Thursday that spying powers claimed under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act has "not identified any major case developments" through the controversial statue. The report covers a three-year period between 2007 through 2009 and notes that the nation's top domestic law enforcement agency tripled its use of Section 215 requests beginning in 2004.

UPDATE: Senator Paul is standing firm on his promise to hold out for better surveillance reforms. Since Senator McConnell has thus far shown no indication that he will allow the amendment votes that Rand has asked for, there is a good chance that Section 215 of the Patriot Act will be allowed to expire Sunday night.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee voted on the bipartisan Poe-Lofgren Amendment to the USA Freedom Act, a bill intended to reduce to reduce warrantless spying on American citizens. The Amendment offered two desperately needed improvements to the bill. The first would have prevented the government from searching through “incidentally collected data” without a specific warrant except in emergency situations. The second would forbid the government from requesting or mandating that manufacturers include “back doors” in their products to allow for surveillance of the users.

As one of our more than 6.9 million FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact the members of the House Judiciary Committee today and ask them to support the Poe-Lofgren Amendment to the USA FREEDOM Act to limit NSA spying.

Set to expire at the end of May, Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act is only one of a number of authorities the government uses to defy the 4th Amendment and spy on millions of Americans without a direct warrant. Nevertheless, its upcoming sunset date provides defenders of liberty a strong chance to make serious move back towards our founders’ intention that:

As one of our over 6.9 million FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote NO on both the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (H.R. 1560) and the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act (H.R. 1731).