Free Republic

(WASHINGTON DC) The National Security Agency has recommended that the White House abandon a U.S. surveillance program that collects information about Americans’ phone calls and text messages, saying the logistical and legal burdens of keeping it outweigh its intelligence benefits, according to people familiar with the matter. The recommendation against seeking the renewal of the once-secret spying program amounts to an about-face by the agency, which had long argued in public and to congressional overseers that the program was vital to the task of finding and disrupting terrorism plots against the U.S. The latest view is rooted in a growing...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday offered an impassioned defense of his vote to rein in the government's bulk phone surveillance, blasting those in his party who he said wanted to "exploit the current crisis by calling on Americans to surrender our constitutional liberties as the only way to ensure our safety."The Republican presidential candidate, who has been gaining in recent early-state primary polling, used a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation to respond to criticism from two fellow candidates, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for his vote to end the National Security Agency's mass...

WASHINGTON—The Senate early Saturday defeated a string of efforts to extend the Patriot Act as lawmakers splintered over its contentious phone surveillance program and left town with no plan in place to prevent the law from lapsing. After next week’s Memorial Day recess, the Senate will resume its debate over the national security law at 4 p.m. on May 31, eight hours before the law expires at midnight. Lawmakers fractured through the evening, rejecting a House bill overhauling the NSA, a two-month Patriot Act extension and then increasingly short extensions of the law. Primarily due to objections from presidential candidate...

To the surprise of perhaps no one, Senators Arlen Specter and John McCain have jumped on this morning's reports of NSA spying within the United States as another opportunity to grab the limelight.Report of NSA Spying Prompts Call for Probe (AP) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter put the Bush administration on notice Friday that his panel would hold hearings into a report that the National Security Agency eavesdropped without warrants on people inside the United States. "There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," said Specter, R-Pa., calling hearings early next year "a very, very high priority." He wasn't...